Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-10-22

acres: one sparrow to ? acres: one
| cOwbird To acres; one meadow lark
TO 13 acres; one dove TO 1G acres; one
robin to 20 acres; one thrush 10 %
acres and one horned lark TO 20 ac-
res. At this rate there would be 42G
! blackbirds to the square mile and -
| horned larks.
! What the StOnacbs show.
The utility Of this test depends on
| the analysis of the birds stomachs.
! Four per cent of all these birds were
! found purely useful. az per cent decid-
! eddy useful and , per cent moderate
| ly useful; this makes 1OIa per cent
more or less useful.
Fifty-five per cent were of rather
doubtful utility.
| Nineteen per cent Ghc sparrOws)
were definitely injurious.
In the light of these figures the bird
problem doesn't seem 50 important as
| has been thought. The winter kinds of
birds were found more largely useful
than the summer kinds. as the winter
birds destroy noxious weed seed; the
summer birds live more largely on in
SeCts.
OF the winter birds u per cent were
purely beneficial. 10 decidedly benefi-
cial. per cent moderately useful. %
per cent doubtful. and - per cent in
furious This shows IS per cent more
or less useful.
Purely useful as used above means
doing no damage: decidedly useful 80
that the benefit is considerably more
than the damage done. and moderate
ly useful" that the benefit is not so
large. but is plainly more than the
damage
Meadow Lark il Purely Useful.
These Investigations do not take
into account the birds relation TO the
garden or orchard but to the grain and
the farm as whole.
The meadow lark and the jinko
snowbird and tree sparrow in winter
are three birds found TO be purely use
full. They protect the pastures and the
grain crops and nothing was found TO
their discredit.
In the class of decidedly useful birds.
the percentages of benefit exceeding
the percentages of damages were
found the robin and the horned lark
The beauty and usefulness and
checrfulness of the meadow lark were
spoken of in high terms. 1t stays here
from March to September or October.
There is only one meadow lark to Is
acres of land or 80 to the square mile
in summer In the United States in
vestiGation of 23S specimens it was
found that IS per cent of their food
consisted of insects; % per cent were
grasshoppers and cut worms and rs
per cent caterpillars. This saves an
enormous destruction of gyass food.
The meadow lark takes no fruit and
only 10 per cent of corn and wheat.
this mostly in winter and of grain that
is wasted. No sprOuting grain has
ever been found in its stomach: il
does not pull up grain. 1t is estimated
that single meadow lark gets about
30 grasshoppers a day or 5000 every
year. 1t eats just about the same
amount of grass caterpillars.
From the contents of the stomach IL
is estimated that each meadow lark is
worth about 90 cents 10 the farmer for
the season. This is a per cent in
come on SIS. So it may be counted
that the farmer has SIS invested in
each meadow lark The advantage
comes in the increase of the grass
crop. Each meadow lark is worth |
about SIS TO the farmer He ought |
not to allow a meadow lark to be kill |
ed unless he would allow pig TO be
killed. The meadow lark upon "A
square mile are worth about $500. SO
beautiful. interesting and valuable I
bird as the meadow lark should be the |
state bird of Illinois.
The robins horticultural relations