156 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



early spring, announcing the return of the season of its mat- 

 ing and nest building. A few of them may be found nesting 

 and rearing their young in each meadow throughout the wide 

 extent of their range, and it is this that makes them so valu- 

 able to us. It is entirely terrestrial in its habits, procuring al- 

 most its entire food supply from the insect life that is harm- 

 ful to our meadow and prairie lands. For six months of the 

 year ninety per cent, of its food consists of such insects and 

 during August and September over ninety-nine per cent. Even 

 during the winter months, when insect life is dormant, it finds 

 enough that is hidden below the surface of the ground or 

 secreted among the grass to furnish a very considerable por- 

 tion of its diet. Grasshoppers and crickets compose over 

 twenty-five per cent, of its food, while an equally large share 

 is made up of beetles, among them weevils, curculio and click 

 beetles. The latter during the larvae stage are known as wire- 

 worms, and often destroy seeds before they have germinated, 

 and thus ruin fields of corn and other grain at the outset. 

 Meadow larks also destroy cutworms, army worms, and great 

 numbers of the pest known as the chinch bug. It is estimated 

 that this bug has destroyed in the United States during the 

 last half century grain to the value of over $330,000,000. 



In its beauty of coloring, its usefulness, the sweetness of 

 its song, its domestic relations, and its devotion to its young 

 the meadow lark is the very antithesis of the cowbird, treated 

 of in the preceding chapter and whose foul progeny is fre- 

 quently imposed upon it to be cared for. Indeed there are 

 very few birds, if any, which have combined in them more 

 good qualities than the meadow lark. In his Wild Wood 

 Notes, Mr. Cheney says : "The meadow lark's song is essen- 

 tially tender and plaintive. In the dewy morning and toward 

 evening he will stand a long time upon a stump or large rock 

 or rock-heap, singing at intervals little snatches of melody ; 

 occasionally like the oriole and the kingfisher, giving his low, 

 rapid chattering monotones. It is a favorite pastime with him 

 to repeat four tones many times in succession, with rests in- 

 tervening, sometimes adding to them another strain ; and 

 these fragmentary strains, when connected, form an original 

 and interesting song. Now and then there is an exquisite 



