BY THE WAYSIDE 
85 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters to this department should be 
written on only one side of the page, should 
give name, age and address of the writer and 
should be mailed by the first of the month; 
Illinois writers sending to Miss Mary Drum¬ 
mond, Spring Lane, Lake Forest, Ill., and 
Wisconsin writers to Mr. Roland E. Kremers, 
Madison, Wis. To each writer whose letter 
is published will be sent a beautiful colored 
picture of the bird of the m nth. For the 
best letter each month we will send ‘Winter 
Picnics” by Ruth Marshall. Preference will 
be given to letters about the bird study 
for the month and to original observations. 
The wren button which is the badg3 of the 
Audubon Society, costs two cents and can be 
bought from Miss Mary Drummond, or Mr. 
Kremers. 
Any Wisconsin society may, by paying 
the express, have the use of the Gordon and 
Merrill Libraries of bird books by applying 
to Mr. Kremers. 
A set of colored bird slides with a type¬ 
written lecture may be rented from Roland 
E. Kremers, 1720 Vilas Street, Madison, 
Wis. Illinois Schools may use, without ex¬ 
pense, a library or a lecture with lantern 
slides, by applying to Miss Bunnel, Academy 
of Sciences, Chicago. 
i 
The Bird of the Month 
There are a number of birds which 
everyone should know absolutely. 
Aside from the robin, perhaps the 
most prominent of these is the mead¬ 
owlark. It is found in almost every 
pent of the state, on the open fields 
and prairies. Here at Madison it 
comes back in the spring about the 
second week in March but does not 
become common until a little later. 
The crown is brown with a huff¬ 
ish stripe through the center. The 
back looks irregularly marked with 
brown, black and buff. Its breast and 
upper belly are colored a clear yellow, 
broken by a very distinct black cres¬ 
cent. The tail lias considerable white 
at the tips of the feathers, which is 
most planly seen when the bird 
alights. The sexes are similar. 
In its economic relations, the mead¬ 
owlark is of particular importance. 
During the entire year it takes nearly 
75 per cent of all its food from the 
animal kingdom. Grasshoppers and 
cr’ckets form over one-fourth of all 
its food. These, together with the 
beetles, form one-half of its food. 
With regard to its vegetable diet 
the meadowlark is of consider¬ 
able importance. Weed seeds form 
annually 12 per cent of its food and 
grain 15 per cent. This would at first 
seem somewhat unfavorable, but grain 
is largely eaten during the months 
of December, January and February, 
when the scarcity of animal food 
drives it into the stubble to glean up 
the fallen kernels of grain. In July 
The Maadow Lark 
