ICTERID^ — THE ORIOLES. 177 



Habits. The diflerenues of ijluiiiage between this speeie.s and our ea.stern 

 Meadow Lark are so slij;lit tliat we might iiesitate to aUow the existence of 

 any specific distinctness between tlie two tbrins, were it not lor the very 

 strongly marked differences between them in otlier respects. Whether we 

 regard tiiem as races or as different species, their iiistory diverges as we cross 

 the jNlissouri liiver, though both are found on either bank. 



The existence of this variety was first made known by Mes.srs. Lewis and 

 Clark, in their memorable expedition to the liocky Mountains. They refer 

 especially to the difference, in the notes, between this bird and the old Field 

 Lark of the east. It remained unnoticed liy our ornithologists until 1844, 

 when Mr. Audubon included it in the ajipendix to his seventh volume. Lie 

 met with it in his voyage to the Yellowstone, and it -would have escaped his 

 notice had not the attention of his party been called to its curious notes. 

 In its flight, manners on the ground, or general habits, he could perceive no 

 difference between it and the ci.niinion .sjiecies. None of its nests that he 

 found were covered over, in tlie manner of the vudjiitt, and the eggs were 

 differently marked. 



Mr. J. A. Allen, in his interesting paper on the birds oliserved in Western 

 Iowa, while he does not admit any specific difference between these two 

 forms, presents with impartial exactness the very striking dissimilarity be- 

 tween them, both in habits and in song. In regard to the di^•ersity in habits 

 we quote his words : — 



" At the little village of Denison, where I first noticed it in song, it was 

 particularly common, and half domestic in its habits, preferring the streets 

 and grassy lanes, and the immediate vicinity of the village, to the remoter 

 prairie. Here, wholly unmolested and unsusjiicious, it collected its food ; 

 and the males, from tlieir accustomed perches on the housetops, daily warbled 

 their wild songs for hours together." These traits of I'aiuiliarity, so totally 

 different from anything ever observed in our eastern birds, he does not con- 

 cede, however, as establishing necessarily specific difference. Yet he does ad- 

 mit that its song was so new to him that he did not at first have the slightest 

 suspicion that its utterer was the western Meadow Lark, as he found it to be. 

 He adds : " It differs from that of the Meadow Lark in the Eastern States, 

 in the notes being louder and wilder, and at the same time more li(iuid, mel- 

 lower, and far sweeter. They have a pensiveness and a general character 

 remarkalily in harmony with the half-dreamy wildness of the primitive 

 prairie, as though the bird had received from its surroundings their peculiar 

 impress. It differs, too, in the less freijuency of tiie harsli, complaining 

 chatter so conspicuous in the eastern bird." 



The value of these marked differences, both in song and chai'actcr. between 

 the eastern and western birds, we will not argue, but will only add that they 

 are none too strikingly presented by Mr. Allen. During the writer's brief 

 visit to the Plains he was strongly impressed by the natural, confiding 

 trustfulness of this species and its wonderful beauty of song, both in 



VOL. II. 23 



