492 
ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF OUR BIRDS. 
ably tend to make them more abundant, but it is doubtful whether their services 
will compensate for the injury that would result to the hay crop by allowing it 
to stand so long. 
Food: Of four specimens examined, two had eaten four moths; two, four 
diptera, among which was one tipulid. 
Insects and spiders (Samuels). 
Family ALAUDID.®: Laeks. 
Fig. 113. 
Horned Lark alpestris). After Coues. 
24. Eremophela alpestris (Linn.), Boie. HORNED LARK; SHORE LARK. 
Group I. Class b. 
Without reference, in the present connection, to the varieties of this species 
which have been designated, except to state that leucolcema is probably the only 
form that breeds in the state, it may be said that this highly terrestrial and 
graminivorous bird is rather common in suitable places during most of the year, 
but that it is only abundant late in the fall and eai*ly in the spring. Except 
during the breeding season, it is gregarious in its habits, and its usual haunts 
are dry, open fields. Fields of newly sowed grain are sometimes visited by 
these birds both in the spring and fall, but the little injury that they do in 
picking up grain at present is slight when compared with the immense amount 
of seeds of various weeds which they consume during the year. Although it 
rears two broods each year, the exposed situations in which its nest is located 
appears to preclude any very considerable abundance. 
Food: Five out of six specimens examined had eaten only the seeds of weeds, 
among which were those of the black bind-weed, the pigeon-grass and pig¬ 
weed; the remaining specimen had in its stomach winter wheat. 
Small black seeds, buckwheat, oats, buds of sprig birch and larvm of certain 
insects (Wilson). Seeds and insects which it finds among the grass (Cooper). 
Seeds of grasses, insects and mollusks (Samuels). Of seven specimens exam¬ 
ined by Prof. Forbes, one had eaten ground-beetles; one, a fungus-beetle (Cryp- 
tophagidae); one, a rove-beetle; two, leaf-chafers; one, a predaceous hemiptera 
(Reduviidse); and six, seeds of weeds. 
