20 BORNED LARKS IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE. 
in dollars and cents, is enormous. The Botanist of the Department of 
Agriculture says: 
The dired loss in crops, the damage to machinery and stock, and the decrease in 
value of land due to weeds, amount without question to tcns.it' millions of dollars 
each year — a loss sustained almost wholly by the fanners of the nation." 
To limit the loss caused l>v them an unending warfare must be wa&red 
by the fanner. Any allies in this defensive warfare should be wel- 
comed, and of such allies the seed-eating birds are the most important. 
The farmer, by the expenditure of time and labor, can destroy the 
weeds when they have sprouted, or later before they have ripened 
seed. But the seeds which are on and in the ground and which remain 
there for an indefinite period awaiting favorable opportunity for ger- 
mination, it is not practicable for man to destroy. This portion of 
the work tin 4 birds attend to, and among the bird- most actively 
engaged in consuming weed seeds the horned larks are conspicuous. 
Weed seeds arc by far the largest single component of their food (63.9 
percent ), and over 1,070 birds of the number examined had eaten them. 
no fewer than 206 individuals having fed upon them to the exclusion 
of everything else. There can be no doubt of the fact that the horned 
larks display a preference for weed seeds and depend upon them as the 
piece di resistanc< of every meal. 
The larks, unlike some other species, do not perch upon weeds and 
peck apart the heads, thus assisting in scattering the seed, and it is in 
the last degree improbable 1 that tiny of the seeds they eat pass through 
the alimentary canal in a condition to germinate. They have strikingly 
large and muscular gizzards, which seem specially adapted to dealing 
with hard and tough-coated seeds, and, moreover, they eat a great 
quantity of gravel. It litis been found that us the result of the com- 
bined action of the gizzard and the gravel every kind of seed eaten by 
this lark is crushed. Even the exceedingly hard nutlets of Lithosper- 
iii a n> succumb to its action. Cherry pits, which tire very bard and of a 
shape most difficult to crush, are broken; minute seeds, such as those of 
amaranth and oxalis tire ground up. and their fragments in the stomach 
resemble m\ pepper. Among the weeds the seeds of which furnish 
grist for these destructive mills are some of the worst pests in the 
country. Of a list of LOO weeds which tire regarded as the most 
troublesome in the United States, the seeds of no fewer than 38 are 
included in the diet of these birds. Of this number the foxtail grasses, 
smart weeds, bindweeds, amaranth, pigweeds, purslane, ragweed, and 
the crab and bam grasses are conspicuous. The seeds of foxtail head 
the list, being found in 347 stomachs examined. Over 300 birds had 
eaten the seeds of amaranth dig. B) and nearly 260 those of pigweed. 
"Covillc. in Farmers' Bulletin No. 28 (Weeds; and how to kill them; hy J.. II. 
Dewey I, |». 3, L895. 
