14 BORNED LARKS IN RELATION TO kQ RICULT1 i: I •'. 
Mr. E. \Y. Nelson, of the Biological Survey, in writing about the 
California horned lark in 1893, stated: 
This species is excessively abundant in the San Joaquin Valley of California, east 
of Tulare Lake. In ant mini they gather in enormous flocks, containing hundreds of 
birds, and continue together until spring. When the farmers sow their winter 
wheat on these plains the shore larks swarm over the fields in countless numbers, 
scratching up and greedily devouring the grain. They do this so persistently thai 
fields are sometimes replanted on account of their depredations, and all fields are 
considerably damaged by them. 
Such direct evidence as the above, from observations in the field, 
establishes beyond doubt that in wheat fields, newly sown broadcast, 
the horned lark is a pest, and this conclusion is corroborated 1 > \ the 
result- of stomach examinations. 
Before discussing these it will be well to outline the conditions of 
grain raising in California. The Sacramento and the San Joaquin 
river valleys and the coastal region from San Francisco south are 
the important wheat-growing areas, and it is precisely in these places 
that the horned larks are most numerous during the second sowing 
time. This occurs in January and February, the first being late in 
summer (August and September) before the first fall rain, or imme- 
diately after it if the soil can not he worked before. Thus there are 
two periods in the year during which wheat is exposed to attacks of 
the larks. 
Since horned larks are present only in small numbers during the first 
sowing season, the possibilities of injury from them are not great; 
moreover, that the birds present eat little wheat appears from the tact 
that none of it was found in the stomach- of any of the horned Larks from 
California, in number over L50, which were collected from August to 
the end of the year. 
During the winter sowing, however, the horned larks are abundant, 
and then it is that complaints are made of their wheat-eating habits. 
complaints which our investigations show are not unfounded. Wheat 
constituted L4.1 percent of the food of 21 birds collected in January 
and 74 percent of that of 5 birds taken in February. However, all of 
the wheat taken in January was in the stomachs of :; specimens from 
Escondido, San Diego County, and it made 99 percent of their con- 
tents. The high percentage of wheat in the food in Februaryis partly 
due to the small number of specimens examined, namely. 5. Three 
of these, however, were shot from a Hock of birds which were 'sup- 
posed to be pulling wheat,' and thus were caught in the very act. These, 
also, were taken at Escondido, and contained an average <>f 93.3 per- 
cent of w heat. 
These facts justify the conclusion that horned larks eat wheat 
whenever they can find it. It forms only 9.1 percent of the year's 
food of the California horned larks, but as most of this is ^vvd grain 
