70 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FA.RM. 



grains, and in its stomach other wheat half digested, all amounting to 

 91 percent of its food. The next year bobwhites were noted feeding 

 in wheat stubble in lot 3 (PL XII, fig. 2). In November, 1900, observa- 

 tions were made in a cornfield in which the tops of the stalks had been 

 removed for fodder, leaving the ears attached to low stalks. In many 

 places kernels had dropped to the ground, but the bobwhites that 

 frequented the field to procure weed seed apparently did not touch 

 them. These desultory data would seem to indicate that the bob- 

 white takes only waste wheat and does not relish corn, but observa- 

 tions made in November, 1901, on lot 5 of the Br3^an farm, when the 

 corn was in the stack (PL XII, fig. 1), does not confirm this supposi- 

 tion; for in this case the birds fed to a certain extent on the waste 

 kernels of corn scattered on the ground. 



The meadowlark is much less granivorous than these two species, 

 but it often picked up wheat in stubble-fields just after harvest 

 and late in the fall. One specimen obtained November 29, 1900, con- 

 tained 70 percent of wheat. The cardinal was occasional!}^ seen feed- 

 ing on waste wheat and corn along the edge of stubble-fields. The 

 English sparrow, the crow, the crow blackbird, the red-wing, and the 

 cowbird are also stubble feeders. On the 5tli of August, 1898, full}^ 

 a thousand crow blackbirds with a few redwings were noted picking 

 up waste grain in the wheat and oat stubble of the Hungerford farm. 

 If such a horde of these birds were present at harvest time, complaints 

 would be made against them as serious as those now heard from the 

 Mississippi Valley. 



During the blizzard of February, 1900, several birds obtained food 

 from the droppings of farm animals. English sparrows and crows 

 were seen picking corn from dung in the hog pen on the Hungerford 

 farm, and meadowlarks, horned larks, doves, and cardinals were 

 noticed taking it from cow droppings in an open pasture. 



The native sparrows, unlike the English sparrows, have little or no 

 liking for grain. In a field of wheat on the Bryan farm 5 English 

 sparrows and 19 native sparrows, including song, field, chipping, and 

 grasshopper sparrows, were collected, just before and just after the 

 crop was cut. All the English sparrows were gorged with wheat, but 

 only 2 native sparrows — a chipping sparrow and a grasshopper spar- 

 row — had eaten it, and they had taken onl}^ a single kernel apiece. 

 Moreover, when winter wheat sprouted, the hosts of native sparrows 

 from the North that were running over the fields could not be detected 

 doing it any injur}- . 



VI.— WEED SEED. 



Weed seed is a staple article of diet for practically all seed-eating 

 birds. It formed 18 percent of the food of the whole number of birds 

 collected, and had been eaten by 162. Lists of these birds and of the 

 41 kinds of seeds that the}^ selected are appended. 



