The Western Meadowlark 



as criminal as it would be to shoot boys at sight because some boys 

 occasionally steal apples. For the fact remains, incontestably proven 

 by one of the most painstaking investigations ever conducted, 1 that the 

 services performed by the Meadowlark as a destroyer of insects harmful 

 to agriculture, overwhelmingly preponderate over the bird's occasional 

 destruction of grain. The figures are interesting. Dr. Bryant estimates 

 that a Meadowlark requires annually about six pounds of food. Of this 

 a half pound is weed-seed, one and three-quarters pounds grain — chiefly 

 fallen grain — and two and three-quarters pounds, insects. The grain is 

 worth, say ten cents, or if we count the average ounce of sprouting grain 

 consumed at fifteen times ordinary value, we will have a debit of fifteen 

 cents per annum against the bird. But what is the minus value of pre- 

 dacious insects, among them the most destructive known, such as wire- 

 worms and cut-worms, which are Meadowlark's specialties? Soberly, 

 almost anywhere from a dollar to a hundred dollars a pound, according 

 to the value of the crops which the farmer is trying to raise. Yet, 

 according to Dr. Bryant, it takes 193 pounds of insect food each day to 

 feed the young Meadowlarks of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys 

 alone. The imagination staggers before the sober conclusions of science 

 regarding our indebtedness to the Meadowlark. In the face of this 

 showing, and it does not rest on one man's testimony alone — Professor 

 Beal has elsewhere shown that in the matter of grasshopper consumption 

 Meadowlarks of average distribution are worth twenty-four dollars per 

 month per township in saving the nation's hay crop — In the face of such 

 a showing, I say, the efforts which certain individuals have persistently 

 made in the halls of our State Legislature to remove protection from our 

 Western Meadowlark, argue not only a spirit untouched by beauty or 

 worth, but a low grade of intelligence. 



And it goes without saying that we cannot regard this bird as lawful 

 game. Its flesh is undoubtedly a delicacy, but so is human flesh. We 

 exempt the horse from slaughter not because its flesh is unfit for food — 

 it is really very sapid — but because the animal has endeared itself to our 

 race by generations of faithful service. We place the horse in another 

 category, that of animal friend. And the human race, the best of it, 

 has some time since discovered compunctions about eating its friends. 

 Make friends with this bonny bird, the Meadowlark, and you will be 

 ashamed thenceforth to even discuss assassination. Fricassee of prima 

 donna! Voice of morning en brochette! Bird-of-merry-cheer on toast! 

 Faugh ! And yet that sort of thing passed muster a generation ago — does 

 yet in the darker parts of Europe ! 



1 A Determination of the Economic Status of the Western Meadowlark (Slurnella neglecta) in California, bv 

 Harold Child Bryant. U. of C Pub. Zool., Vol. II., no. 14, pp. 377-510. pis. 21-24, 5 text figs.. Feb. 27, 1914. 



135 



