THE OSP REY. 



An Illustrated Monthly Magazine Devoted Exclusively to the Interests of 



ORNITHOLOGY, 



Volume 1. 



JULY-AUGUST, 1897. 



Numbers 11-12. 



SONG NOTES AND NESTING NOTES OF THE WESTERN MEADOWLARK. 



REV. P. B. PEABODY, ST. VINCENT, MINN. 



RECENT writer in Tlie wings. And now his skin enriches my collection, but 



.-////' has endeavored to re- the beautiful song is hushed forever. Since then I 



duce a number of the songs have often listened to the counterparts, or variants 



of Stii]-)U'llii ih-t;/i-i/ii to the of that song. And just once, but two years ago, I 



limitations of musical nota- heard a veritable song-refrain from the throat of 



tion. His failure to do this ttcglecta, clear cut, staccato, brief, and both rhythmic 



intelligently, in even a sol- and tonal. As I write I can hear it still ; and it could 



itary case, to at least one be quickly and easily expressed in musical terms were 



ornithologist who is thor- it worth the while to harass our printer for the .sake 



oughly familiar with this bird in its breeding haunts 

 (and whose study of music and of bird-life hri\ p hr-r-i 

 coeval,) only shows how elusi\ r 

 are many bird marks that an- 

 still absolutely familiar. 



When science shall have tn 

 abled us, phonographically, tn 

 retinize the songs of birds, we 

 may hope to subject the lo\t- 

 notes of many birds to deliberate 

 and satisfactory analysis; bui 

 until this desideratum shall ha\ i 

 been attained, we must continm 

 to allow the peculiarly rich a 

 rhythmic melodies of our West- 

 ern Meadowlark to remain 

 among those tantalizingly fas 

 cinating delights which cannot 

 be transmitted through human 

 media ; but must be heard with all their charmin 

 concomitants if they are to become a delight. 



^>. 



NEST OF THE WESTERN MEADOWLARK 



of SO very short a ditty. But the song was unique ; 

 and, even wrre T to write it down, not even the anno- 

 tater of the bird-songs in 77/, ■ 

 '•:(k would believe that I had 

 ■r really heard it. 

 l!ut, during the current sea- 

 -^ '\\, since reading over the songs 

 I' terred to — studying them, too, 

 111 a sort of puzzled way — I have 

 listened carefully to the local 

 li-cta songs, hearing them, at 

 it-rvals, all the spring and 

 summer long on willowy mead- 

 ow-wastes and prairie-stretches, 

 forty and fifty miles apart. x\nd 

 in the stud}ing I have come to 

 this conclusion — the statement 

 uf which can by no possibility 

 hurt anybody — namely : that 

 the ordinary breeding songs of the Western Mead- 

 owlark are well crystallized and generic ; that they 



.^U 



I well recall the crisp, clear morning of that April are, in the main, almost absolutely rhythmic ; but 

 day when the dashing notes of the bird in question that, while exhibiting certain uniformities of pitch, 

 first fell upon my astonished ears. This, in Central higher and lower in the various members, (the 

 Minnesota. At my Wisconsin home the Eastern vibrations in the corresponding parts being, so far 

 form was habitant, in summer, sparingly; and its as I can discern, remarkably uniform,) the mus- 

 comparatively weak and plaintive song had become ical intervals bear no sort of relation, in the main, 

 reasonably well known to me in my boyhood days, to the semi-tonal system on which is based all the more 

 But here was something new. Greatly loth, yet still refined forms of human music. Hence, when the 

 eager, I crept nearer to the new-found singer. In- effort is made to represent, by musical notation, the 

 stantly, the smell of powder tainted the sweet morn- songs in question, the rhythm, indeed, may be por- 

 ing air; and I, with a sharp momentary pang, ran to trayed with a high degree of accuracy ; but all the 

 pick up that exquisite composite of blacks and browns rest is an unintelligible blank. The heart of it all is 

 and yellows and grays. There he lay, silent, upon lacking, remaining deliciously wild and free out upon 

 the frosty grass, with the night dew frozen upon his the prairies, in the throats of the brave and cheery 



