Next to grasshoppers, beetles make up the most important item of the meadowlark’s food, amounting to 25 per cent, about one-half of which are predacious ground beetles. The others are all harmful species.
Forty-two individuals of different kinds of May beetles were found in the stomachs of meadowlarks, and there were probably many more which were past recognition. To this form and several closely allied ones belong the numerous white grubs, which are among the worst enemies to many cultivated crops, notably grasses and grains, and to a less extent strawberries and garden vegetables. In the larval stage they eat the roots of these plants, and being large, one individual may destroy several plants. In the adult stage they feed upon the foliage of trees and other plants, and in this way add to the damage which they began in the earlier form. As these enemies of husbandry are not easily destroyed by man, it is obviously wise to encourage their natural foes.
Among the weevils found in the stomachs the most important economically are the cotton-boll weevil and the recently introduced alfalfa weevil of Utah. Several hundred meadowlarks were taken in the cotton-growing region, and the boll weevil was found in 25 stomachs of the eastern meadowlark and in 16 of the western species. Of the former, one stomach contained 27 individuals. Of 25 stomachs of western meadowlarks taken in alfalfa fields of Utah, 15 contained the alfalfa weevil. In one stomach 23 adults were found, in another 32 adults and 70 larvæ, still another had 10 adults and 40 larvæ, while a fourth had 4 adults and 100 larvæ.
Caterpillars form a very constant element of the food, and in May constitute over 24 per cent of the whole. May is the month when the dreaded cutworm begins its deadly career, and then the lark does some of its best work. Most of these caterpillars are ground feeders, and are overlooked by birds which habitually frequent trees, but the meadowlark finds and devours them by thousands. The remainder of the insect food is made up of ants, wasps, and spiders, with some bugs, including chinch bugs, and a few scales.
The vegetable food consists of grain and weed and other hard seeds. Grain in general amounts to 11 per cent and weed and other seeds to 7 per cent. Grain, principally corn, is eaten mostly in winter and early spring and consists, therefore, of waste kernels; only a trifle is consumed in summer and autumn, when it is most plentiful. No trace of sprouting grain was discovered. Clover seed was found in only six stomachs, and but little in each. Seeds of weeds, principally ragweed, barnyard grass, and smartweed, are eaten from November to April, inclusive, but during the rest of the year are replaced by insects.
Briefly stated, more than half of the meadowlark’s food consists of harmful insects; its vegetable food is composed either of noxious weeds or waste grain, and the remainder is made up of useful beetles or neutral insects and spiders. A strong point in the bird’s favor is that, although naturally an insect eater, it is able to subsist on vegetable food, and consequently is not forced to migrate in cold weather farther than is necessary to find ground free from snow.
[THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS.]
The red-winged or swamp blackbird[41] in its various forms ([fig. 14]) is found all over the United States and the region immediately to the north. While common in most of its range, its distribution is more or less local, mainly on account of its partiality for marshes. It builds its nest over or near standing water, in tall grass, rushes, or bushes. Owing to this peculiarity the bird may be absent from large tracts of country which afford no swamps or marshes suitable for nesting. It usually breeds in large colonies, though single families, consisting of a male and several females, may sometimes be found in a small slough, where each female builds her nest and rears her own little brood, while her liege lord displays his brilliant colors and struts in the sunshine. In the upper Mississippi Valley the species finds most favorable conditions, for the countless prairie sloughs and the margins of the numerous shallow lakes afford nesting sites for thousands of red-wings; and here are bred the immense flocks which sometimes do so much damage to the grain fields of the West. After the breeding season the birds congregate preparatory to migration, and remain thus associated throughout the winter.
[41] Agelaius phœniceus.