MEADOW LARK AND BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 425 
and the bones of small frogs or toads (Batrachians) in three. These 
last were from stomachs taken in Florida, and do not appear to be a 
favorite food. 
From the foregoing, it is evident that the meadow lark is preemi- 
nently an insect eater; still it has recourse when necessary to vege- 
table food. 
As before stated, the total vegetable food for the year amounts to 27 
percent. Of this, grain (corn, wheat, and oats) aggregates 14.4 per 
cent, or a trifle more than half. The percentages of the different kinds 
of grain are: Corn, 11.1; wheat, 1.8; oats, 1.4. The largest quantity of 
grain was eaten in January, when the stomachs contained 53 per cent 
of corn, 11 per cent of wheat, and 9 per cent of oats. During the sum- 
mer months the grain disappears, to appear again as the supply of 
insects fails. Sprouting grain was not found in any stomach. In 
April the total amount of grain was a little less than 15 per cent, and 
this may have been taken from newly sown fields. In May no wheat 
or oats were found, and only 1.9 per cent of corn. 
Seeds of plants classed as weeds were found in every month except 
May, and it is probable that a greater number of stomachs in that 
month would have shown at least a few. Excepting the single stom- 
ach taken in February, which contained 75 per cent of barn-grass 
seed (Chameraphis,) weed.seeds attain their maximum of over 25 
per cent in December. The average for the year is a little more than 
11 per cent, or the same as corn. The remaining vegetable food aver- 
ages less than 1 per cent. Fruit seems to be accidental, each of the 
varieties named having been found in only one or two stomachs, and 
in small quantity. ‘The same is true of the articles enumerated in the 
miscellaneous list. Complaints have been made against the meadow 
lark on the score of eating newly sown clover seed to an injurious 
extent; this seed, however, was found in only six stomachs, and each 
contained but a few seeds. 
The testimony of the stomachs does not indicate that grain is pre- 
ferred to other seeds, and it can not be urged that it is less easily 
obtained than seeds of weeds, for grain is a prominent crop through- 
out much of the country inhabited by meadow larks, and on account 
of its larger kernels is picked up more easily than smaller seeds. The 
meadow larks might be expected to injure grain when they collect in 
flocks, as they sometimes do, but at the time of harvesting wheat and 
oats they are not found in flocks, and the record shows that practically 
no wheat or oats were found in the stomachs, it being the season when 
insects were most abundant and formed nearly the whole food. As 
an illustration, the stomach of a bird killed in a field of shocked oats 
contained nothing but insects. In September and October, when corn 
is being harvested, the amount of this grain found in the stomachs was 
less than 1 per cent. In November, when insects begin to fail, the 
vegetable food increases, but itis worthy of note that weeds (Ambrosia, 
