54 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



those flying across the strip within a hundred yards to our front, 

 were recorded. Thus we covered all types of crops and vegetation 

 during all conditions of weather and at all seasons of the year to 

 obtain a comparative sample of the birdlife. During the summer 

 months alone an area equivalent to 7,793 acres was covered, on which 

 85 species of birds were recorded. The meadowlark proved to be 

 the most abundant of the native Illinois buds, being represented by 

 1,025 individuals, or 13.2 percent, of the total bud population. There 

 was an average of 85 meadowlarks to the square mile for the whole 

 area traversed. As the birds were unequally distributed, never 

 occurring, for example, in woodlands or among shrubbery, their 

 numbers rose to 266 to the square mile in stubble, 205 in meadows, 

 160 on untilled lands, 143 in pastures, and 131 on wastelands, but 

 fell to 10 per square mile in fields of corn. 



The meadowlark population varied in numbers from the northern 

 to the southern part of the State, 100 in northern Illinois being repre- 

 sented by 175 in the central and by 215 in the southern part. The 

 center of density of the summer meadowlark population at that time 

 was in the southern section, and during the winter months the con- 

 centration of meadowlarks in southern Illinois reached an average of 

 373 per square mile. Many of the birds which nest further north 

 winter in that section of the State. 



From various reports I have recently received from the Middle 

 West, it is probable that if the census were repeated today the average 

 meadowlark population would exceed the average of 85 to the square 

 mile obtained during the summer months of 40 years ago. 



Spring. — The migration of the meadowlark is a comparatively 

 limited movement, and the bird retires completely from only the 

 most northern sections of its breeding range. It is a regular winter 

 resident as far north as Maine, southern Ontario, and Michigan; and 

 the southern summer residents do not go beyond the Carolinas, 

 Alabama, Louisiana, and southeastern Texas. In spring the migrants 

 reach Missouri and southern Illinois by the middle of March, arriving 

 in the north central States during the first weeks of April, and in 

 Minnesota and the Dakotas usually during the latter part of the 

 month. The first arrivals in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta 

 appear in the last of April or the first week of May. The vanguard 

 of the migrants reaches southern New England about the middle of 

 March, and a marked movement extends well into April. 



According to William Brewster (1886b), the meadowlarks are 

 among the birds which migrate exclusively by night. He states: 

 "Species which migrate exclusively by night habitually feed in or 

 near the shelter of trees, bushes, rank herbage or grass, and when 

 not migrating are birds of limited powers of flight and sedentary 



