We cannot afford to be indifferent spectators to this early struggle for existence, for it is difficult to overestimate the economic value of the Meadowlark. The bird is by choice almost exclusively insectivorous. If, however, when hard pressed, he does take toll of the fallen wheat or alfalfa seed, he is as easily justifiable as is the hired man who consumes the farmer’s biscuits that he may have the strength to wield the hoe against the farmer’s weeds. Being provided with a long and sensitive bill, the Meadowlark not only gleans its insect prey from the surface of the ground, but works among the grass roots, and actually probes the earth in its search for wire- and cut-worms, those most dreaded pests. Besides devouring injurious grubs and insects of many kinds, the Lark has a great fondness for grasshoppers, subsisting almost entirely upon these in the season of their greatest abundance. In the matter of grasshopper consumption alone Meadowlarks of average distribution, are estimated by no less an authority than Professor Beal, to be worth about twenty-four dollars per month, per township, in saving the hay crop. To the individual farmer this may seem a small matter, but in the aggregate the saving to the nation amounts to some hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Even in winter, when a few individuals or occasional companies of Larks are still to be found, a large proportion of their food consists of hardy beetles and other insects, while weed-seed and scattering grain is laid under tribute, as it were, reluctantly. It goes without saying that we cannot regard this bird as lawful game. We exempt the horse from slaughter not because its flesh is unfit for food—it is really very sapid—but because the animal has endeared itself to our race by generations of faithful service. We place the horse in another category, that of animal friend. And the human race, the best of it, has some time since discovered compunctions about eating its friends. Make friends with this bonny bird, the Meadowlark, and you will be ashamed thenceforth to even discuss assassination. Fricassee of prima donna! Voice of morning _en brochette_! Bird-of-merry-cheer on toast! Faugh! And yet that sort of thing passed muster a generation ago—does yet in the darker parts of Europe! _Fringillidæ_—The Finches No. 23. WESTERN EVENING GROSBEAK. A. O. U. No. 514a. Hesperiphona vespertina montana Ridgway.