Part 7

THE MEADOWLARKS.

The eastern meadowlark (fig. 13) is a common and well-known bird occurring from the Atlantic coast to the Great Plains, where it gives way to the closely related western species, which extends thence westward to the Pacific. It winters from our southern border as far north as the District of Columbia, southern Illinois, and occasionally Iowa. The western form winters somewhat farther north. Although it is a bird of the plains, and finds its most congenial haunts in the prairies of the West, it is at home wherever there is level or undulating land covered with grass or weeds, with plenty of water at hand.

Sturnella magna.

Sturnella neglecta.

In the 1,514 stomachs examined, animal food (practically all insects) constituted 74 per cent of the contents and vegetable matter 26 per cent. As would naturally be supposed, the insects were ground species, as beetles, bugs, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, with a few flies, wasps, and spiders. A number of the stomachs were collected when the ground was covered with snow, but even these contained a large percentage of insects, showing the bird’s skill in finding proper food under adverse circumstances.

Of the various insects eaten, crickets and grasshoppers are the most important, constituting 26 per cent of the food of the year and 72 per cent of the food in August. It is scarcely necessary to mention the beneficial effect of a number of these birds on a field of grass in the height of the grasshopper season. Of the 1,514 stomachs collected at all seasons of the year, 778, or more than half, contained remains of grasshoppers, and one was filled with fragments of 37 of these insects. This seems to show conclusively that grasshoppers are preferred, and are eaten whenever they can be found. Especially notable is the great number taken in August, the month when grasshoppers reach their maximum abundance; stomach examination shows that large numbers of birds resort at this time to this diet, no matter what may be the food during the rest of the year.

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 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.

Agelaius phœniceus.

Three species and several subspecies of red-wings are recognized, but practically no difference exists in the habits of these forms either in nesting or feeding, except such as may result from local conditions. Most of the forms are found on the Pacific side of the continent, and may be considered as included in the following statements as to food and economic status.

Agelaius phœniceus (8 forms), Agelaius gubernator, and Agelaius tricolor.

Many complaints have been made against the red-wing, and several States have at times placed a bounty upon its head. It is said to cause great damage to grain in the West, especially in the upper Mississippi Valley, but no complaints come from the northeastern section, where the bird is much less abundant than in the West and South.

Examination of 1,083 stomachs showed that vegetable matter forms 74 per cent of the food, while animal matter, mainly insects, forms but 20 per cent. A little more than 10 per cent consists of beetles, mostly harmful species. Weevils, or snout beetles, amount to 4 per cent of the year’s food, but in June reach 25 per cent. As weevils are among the most harmful insects known, their destruction should condone some, at least, of the sins of which the bird is accused. Grasshoppers constitute nearly 5 per cent of the food, while the rest of the animal matter is made up of various insects, a few snails, and crustaceans. The few dragon flies found were probably picked up dead, for they are too active to be taken alive, unless by a bird of the flycatcher family. So far as the insect food as a whole is concerned, the red-wing may be considered entirely beneficial.

The interest in the vegetable food of this bird centers around grain. Only three kinds, corn, wheat, and oats, were found in the stomachs in appreciable quantities. They aggregate but little more than 13 per cent of the whole food, oats forming nearly half of this amount. In view of the many complaints that the red-wing eats grain, this record is surprisingly small. The purple grackle has been found to eat more than three times as much. In the case of the crow, corn forms one-third of the food, so that the red-winged blackbird, whose diet is made up of only a trifle more than one-eighth of grain, is really one of the least destructive species. The most important item of the bird’s food, however, is weed seed, which forms practically all of its food in winter and about 57 per cent of the fare of the whole year. The principal weed seeds eaten are those of ragweed, barnyard grass, and smartweed. That these seeds are preferred is shown by the fact that the birds begin to eat them in August, when grain is still readily obtainable, and continue feeding on them even after insects become plentiful in April. The red-wing eats very little fruit and does practically no harm to garden or orchard. Nearly seven-eighths of its food is made up of weed seed or of insects injurious to agriculture, indicating unmistakably that the bird should be protected, except, perhaps, in a few places where it is overabundant.

BOBOLINK.

The bobolink, rice bird, or reed bird (fig. 15) is a common summer resident of the United States, north of about latitude 40°, and from New England westward to the Great Plains, wintering beyond our southern border. In New England there are few birds about which so much romance clusters as this rollicking songster, naturally associated with sunny June meadows; but in the South there are none on whose head so many maledictions have been heaped on account of its fondness for rice. During its sojourn in the Northern States it feeds mainly upon insects and seeds of useless plants; but while rearing its young, insects constitute its chief food, and almost the exclusive diet of its brood. After the young are able to fly, the whole family gathers into a small flock and begins to live almost entirely upon vegetable food. This consists for the most part of weed seeds, since in the North these birds do not appear to attack grain to any great extent. They eat a few oats, but their stomachs do not reveal a great quantity of this or any other grain. As the season advances they gather into larger flocks and move southward, until by the end of August nearly all have left their breeding grounds. On their way they frequent the reedy marshes about the mouths of rivers and on the inland waters of the coast region and subsist largely upon wild rice. In the Middle States, during their southward migration, they are commonly known as reed birds, and becoming very fat are treated as game.

Dolichonyx oryzivorus.

Formerly, when the low marshy shores of the Carolinas and some of the more southern States were devoted to rice culture the bobolinks made great havoc both upon the sprouting rice in spring and upon the ripening grain on their return migration in the fall. With a change in the rice-raising districts, however, this damage is no longer done.

CROW.

In one or another of its geographic races the common crow (fig. 16) breeds in great numbers throughout the States east of the Plains and from the Gulf well up into Canada, while in less abundance it is found in California and in the Northwestern States. During the colder months a southern migratory movement brings most of these birds within the borders of the United States, and at about the latitude of Philadelphia and southern Illinois we find them congregating nightly in roosts. Farmers dwelling in the vicinity of such roosts frequently suffer losses to shocked corn.

Corvus brachyrhynchos.

In fact none of our native birds so much concerns the average farmer of the Eastern States as the common crow. Many of our present criticisms of this bird, as its pulling sprouting corn, feeding on ripening ears, damaging fruits of various kinds, destroying poultry and wild birds, and disseminating diseases of live stock, were common complaints in the days of the early colonists. Many of the virtues of the crow, now quite generally recognized, also have been matters of record for many years. In recent times, however, scientific study of these problems, including the examination of the stomachs of hundreds of crows secured in every month of the year and under a variety of conditions, has enabled us to render a much fairer verdict than was formerly possible.