66 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 
For the determination of the food of the meadowlark 91 stomachs 
were available, distributed throughout the year. The food consists 
of 70 percent of animal matter to 30 of vegetable. Broadly speaking, 
the animal matter is made up of insects and the vegetable of seeds. 
Animal food.—Beetles are the largest item of the animal part of 
the diet. They are evidently a favorite food, for they are eaten 
in every month, with a good percentage in nearly all of them. The 
amount for the year is almost 27 percent. Practically half of this 
consists of the predatory ground beetles (Carabide). It is not sur- 
prising that the meadowlark should eat these beetles, for nearly all 
of them live on the ground, and walk and run much more than they 
fly; hence they are easily taken. As nearly all the species subsist 
largely upon other insects, their destruction must be considered as a 
flaw in this bird’s record. All the other beetles eaten are harmful 
or neutral, and include a number of weevils. One stomach contained 
36 yucca weevils (Rhigopsis effracta). The greatest number of beetles 
appears to have been eaten in March, when they amount to 72 percent, 
but as only two stomachs were available for that month the record 
is unreliable. 
Wasps and ants (Hymenoptera) aggregate nearly 6 percent. 
They were eaten in every month but two, and ample material would 
undoubtedly show them in every month. Ants, being the more 
terrestrial, seem to be more natural food for the meadowlark than 
wasps or bees, but the bird gets a good share of both. Bugs (Hemip- 
tera) were eaten to the extent of a little more than 4 percent. 
Nearly all of them were stinkbugs (Pentatomide). They were not 
eaten very regularly, and several months were not represented. May 
was the month of greatest consumption, 27 percent, but this may have 
been accidental. 
Lepidoptera, largely caterpillars, aggregate about 15 percent. 
They were eaten in every month except August, when they were re- 
placed by grasshoppers. February is apparently the month of maxi- 
mum consumption, but a greater number of stomachs might prove 
differently. It is thought that many of these are of the kinds known 
as cutworms, though none were positively identified. All were un- 
doubtedly terrestrial species, for the meadowlark is not known to seek 
food anywhere but on the Sauna: 
Grasshoppers, when abundant, are usually eaten very freely by 
all ground feeding birds and by many arboreal species. The west- 
ern meadowlark eats them to the extent of something more than 
12 percent of its yearly food. This is a very small percentage for a 
bird of such terrestrial habits. The eastern form cats them to the | 
extent of 29 percent, and in August the amount taken reaches 69 
percent of the food of that month. With the western species the ; ? 
consumption reaches 42 percent in August, which is the maximum . . 
