--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Barnes, Claude T. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 11 number: 8 published: 1908-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Claude T. Barnes, "Some Utah Birds. II. The Meadow Lark," *Improvement Era* 11, no. 8 (June 1908): 597–602.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1108unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1108unse start_page: 597 end_page: 602 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1908-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1108unse publication_year: 1908 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1908, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Utah Birds. II. The Meadow Lark SOME UTAH BIRDS. BY CLAUDE T. BARNES, M. S. P. R., MEMBER NATIONAL ASSOCI- ATION AUDUBON SOCIETY. 1.— THE WESTERN MEADOW LARK. {Sturnella Magna Neglecta.) "Now hear the lark. The herald of the morn." — Shakespeare: — Romeo and Juliet. When the fragrance of June roses fills the air, and the pas- turage waves with green, the world is as blissful as the songs of the birds that rejoice in its bounteousness and sunshine. At such times one learns to .love nature, and to long for the restful soli- tude of the wood, and the charming murmur of the mountain stream. Every little flower, then, has its meaning, and every song from the trees, its note of S3mipathy. As one rambles through grassy lanes and over open fields, there springs up from his path no bird more beloved than the song-filled western meadow God-send to the farmer. lark, the little The meadow lark is so easily identified that none except the urbanite will require its description ; but in order to introduce the reader to a few of the terms necessarily used in all ornithological sketches, a delineation of its main characteristics will be given. One fine morning last April when specious blossoms and newly grown green made my heart dance with a glad appreciation of nature's bigness, fragrance and beauty, I strolled into a Utah meadow, enclosed by immense cottonwood trees and creek wil- . 598 IMPRO VEMENT ERA lows, wherein sang redwinged blackbirds, larks and western song- sparrows. Far above me, seagulls sailed in search of the plough- man. While I stood enjoying the scene, a meadow lark sat at the very tip of the highest cottonwood tree, and whistled with pene- trating clearness and surprisingly accurate repetition, six different songs. In the newly sprouted lucern about me, several more The Western Meadow Lark. dashed about with a vivacity consistent with the season; and from their number I took one specimen. It is, in every way, typical of its kind; and, as it appears mounted before me, its description may he given as follows: From tip to tip, the meadow lark is ten inches long; its tail is 3.25 in length, and its bill 1.25. The general aspect of the SOME UTAH BIRDS. 599 back is dark brown with rusty and grayish intermixtures; in fact, each feather is blackish brown, margined with rusty and gray. Across the rump the tiny feathers are conspicuously barred with blackish brown stripes less than a sixteenth of an inch wide. The tail feathers above are similarly marked, with bars about an eighth of an inch in width. The outer three tail feathers, how- ever, are crossed, obliquely, with broad, longitudinal bands of white, which have narrow bits of brown along the outer edge of the feathers near their ends. The secondaries (the quills growing upon the forearm of the wing), the tertiaries (the long inner quills of the wing growing from the elbow) the greater and the , lesser wing coverts (the soft feathers covering the bases of the wing quills) are all barred like the tail, with blackish brown and rusty. There is a narrow median stripe of gray extending down the back of the head; and a similar one above each eye is of the same shade, except in front where it becomes bright yellow. On the edge or bend of the wing, there is a bright yellow patch. The under surface of the bird is mostly bright yellow and gray. The chin, epigastrium (the portion just behind the breast) and the abdomen in general, are yellow. The sides of the head and the lower tail coverts are grayish white, distinctly marked with elongated spots of dark brown. The anal region (the cris- sum) is white. On the jugulum is a V shaped black patch strongly contrasting with the yellow about it ; and on the sides of the neck each feather is gray with a medium stripe of brown. The bill, which is long, straight and pointed, is light blue below, black above and at the tip; underneath, at its base, how- ever, it has a reddish cast. By reference to the picture, given herewith, many of these markings may be found. Continuing, then, the Western meadow l^rk, as far as dis- tribution is concerned, gives attractiveness to the fields of Indian Territory, Western Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and of all the between these states and the Pacific. territory Utah people have noticed it also in Alberta, and Southern British Columbia, Southwestern Saskatchewan and Western Manitoba. Its nest is usually beside a tuft of grass; and is built of coarse 600 IMPROVEMENT ERA. grasses or weed stalks, lined with finer material of the same kind. The whole is neatly domed and so well hidden that one The eggs often flushes the mother bird before detecting the nest. usually five in number, are white, spotted and speckled with brown, purple and lavender. The meadow lark is one of Utah's most common and birds, its song lends enchantment to almost every grassy lane. Some- times it sings with liquid clearness "Utah's a pretty place," and at others, pours forth measures of greater complication and rich- ness. F. Schuyler Matthews said that its minstrelsy reminded him of the first two bars of Alfredo's song in La Traviata, which are as follows: De mie bol - len ti spi ri ti Mr. Matthews said that the lark sang them this way: :^-.W^^ JESfiES: 11=1; -^=i=t :11 At any rate, the song of the Western meadow lark is imcom- parably clear and sweet, far more thrilling, in fact, than that of the Eastern variety. The lark seems to delight in caroling his rapturous melody from some fence post, though, in reality, he spends most of his time hunting insects and weed-seeds on the ground. Without doubt the meadow lark is the most useful bird that flies about the Utah field. From season to season it eats perni- cious bugs and mischief -making seeds, seldom varying its diet by devouring the unforbidden. The following table made from data furnished by the Bio- logical Survey United States Department of Agriculture, shows ; SOME UTAH BIRDS. 601 clearly the great aid the meadow lark is to the Western farmer. The food of the bird for the year is as follows onths Stomachs Animal Grain Weed Total Examined Food Seeds Jan. 13 24.36 75.28 .36 100 Feb. 1 00 25.00 75.00 100 March 12 73.14 17.00 9.86 100 April 28 77.51 15.10 7.39 100 May 8 97.99 1.88 .13 100 Jane 20 95.79 2.10 2.11 100 July 18 97.32 .00 2.68 100 August 28 99.35 .00 .65 100 Sept. 29 99.20 .40 .40 100 Oct. 40 94.39 .61 5.00 100 Nov. 22 77.08 6.50 16.42 100 Dec. 19 39.22 32.70 28.08 100 Year 238 72.95% 14.71% 12.34% 100% We see from this table that nearly three-fourths of the meadow lark's subsistence consists of insects, over twelve per cent is weed seed and less than fifteen per cent is grain. Furthermore, we notice that during the months of July and August— harvest time— it does not touch grain and therefore we are led to con- ; clude that what grain it does eat is gleaned from the fields, when the coldness of winter has driven insects away. When wheat is yellow in the fields, ninety-nine per cent of the meadow lark's food consists of animal life, mostly noxious bugs. Of the Orthoptera, the meadow lark eats red-legged grass- hoppers, meadow grasshoppers and crickets; indeed grasshoppers make up one-fourth of its yearly sustenance. Of the Coleoptera, itfeeds on weevils, billbugs, curculios, clover weevils, fireflies, lady birds, snout beetles, leaf -eating beetles, fleas, rove beetles, tiger beetles. May beetles, and click beetles. It fares on butter- cutworms, and army worms; the two last named are flies, moths, particularly destructive to the agriculturalist. Of the Hemiptera spittle insects, the meadow lark feeds upon stilt bugs, soldier bugs, assassin bugs, tree hoppers, jumping plant lice, and chinch bugs. It has been estimated, we may say, en passant, that during the last half century chinch bugs have alone destroyed grain in the United States to the value of $330,000,000. : . 602 IMPRO VEMENT ERA The meadow lark eats whenever it can find them, ants, wasps, stinging ants and ichneumon fleas, all of the order Hymenoptera and devours readily ticks, snails, thousand legs, , sowbugs and spiders. In the winter months, it gleans from the fields some wheat, clover seed, corn and oats; but it is only because insects are scarce that it resorts to grain. It feeds upon the seeds of pigeon grass, panic grass, smart weed, ragweed, black mustard and bayberry. The meadow lark is protected by law in all the Western states except Missouri and Idaho; but despite this fact it is shot for food. Unlike the Eastern lark which flies with an occasional jerk of the wings, and then sails a short distance, the Western bird flies with a continuous flutter. Both varieties are easily killed on the wing. The charming companion of the roadside, the tireless bene- factor of man, the Western meadow lark should meet our greatest respect and protection. Salt Lake City, Utah. ONE REASON OF FAILURE. The late Henry A. Havemeyer, president of the American Sugar Refining Company, a week before his death, said ' 'Why do business men fail? Because there are a lot of business men in the country who are fools. Now there are two kinds of fools. We are all born that way, but some of us educate ourselves out of it. That's the first class- Others go on being fools all their lives. That's the second class. A business man to attain success must educate himself out of the tendency to do foolish things. There are two influences always at work upon a man; one urges him to use his common sense; the other urges him to jump in the dark. Most of the men who fail in business jump in the dark. They don't know what they are doing half the time. They guess, instead of know."