422 YEARBOOK OF THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
important element, averaging 29 per cent of all food consumed during 
the year. Even in January they form more than 1 per cent, and 
increase rapidly until August, when they reach the surprising amount 
of 69 per cent. They decrease slowly during the autumn months, but 
in November still amount to 28 per cent, but naturally fall away 
quickly in winter. It is extremely doubtful if any other bird will 
show a better grasshopper record than this. Professor Aughey, in 
his report on the insects eaten by the birds of Nebraska (First Annual 
Report U. 8. Entomological Commission, 1877, Appendix II, p. 34), 
credits the meadow lark with destroying large numbers of grasshop- 
pers. It should be borne in mind that the birds which form the sub- 
ject of this paper were not collected in any region especially infested 
with grasshoppers, but were gathered from nearly all parts of the 
United States. Out of the whole number of stomachs (238), 178 con- 
tained grasshoppers, one containing as many as 37. Of the 28 birds 
taken in August, in seven different States, all but one contained them, 
and one stomach, from New York, was filled with 30 common grass- 
hoppers, 14 green grasshoppers (Locustide), and 10 crickets. Of 29 
stomachs collected in seven States in September, every one contained 
grasshoppers, and two contained nothing else. Of the 40 stomachs 
collected in October from ten States, all but two contained grasshop- 
pers and crickets. 3 
Dr. A. K. Fisher has made some interesting calculations upon the 
amount of hay saved by the destruction of grasshoppers by Swainson’s 
hawk, and it would not seem to be out of place to attempt to reduce 
to a numerical basis the good done by the meadow lark in the con- 
sumption of these insects. Dr. Fisher gives the weight of an average 
grasshopper as 15.4 grains, and entomologists place the daily food of 
a grasshopper as equal to the creature’s own weight, an estimate prob- 
ably much within the limit of truth. Remains of as many as 54 grass- 
hoppers have been found in a single meadow lark’s stomach, but this 
is much above the number usually eaten at one time. Such food, how- 
ever, is digested rapidly and it is safe to assume that at least 50 grass- 
hoppers are eaten each day. If the number of birds breeding in 1 
square mile of meadow land is estimated at 5 pairs, and the number of 
young that reach maturity at only 2 for each pair, or 10 in all, there 
will be 20 birds on a square mile during the grasshopper season. On 
this basis, the birds would destroy 30,000 grasshoppers in one month. 
Assuming that each grasshopper, if let alone, would have lived thirty 
days, the thousand grasshoppers eaten by the larks each day represent 
a saving of 2.2 pounds of forage, or 66 pounds in all for the month. 
If the value of this forage is estimated at $10 per ton (which is below 
the average price of hay in the Eastern markets), the value of the crop 
saved by meadow larks on a township of 36 square miles each month 
during the grasshopper season would be about $356. 
Beetles of many species stand next to crickets and grasshoppers in 
