Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer (1915 edition)Beal, F. E. L. (Foster Ellenborough Lascelles)
Science
Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer (1915 edition)
Beal, F. E. L. (Foster Ellenborough Lascelles)
Birds -- United States
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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