Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



towards the tree-tops with whirring sound and a flight suggest- 

 ing the quail's, do you suspect there are any birds among the 

 tall grasses. 



Their clear and piercing whistle, "Spring o' the y-e-a r. 

 Spring the year ! " rings out from the trees with varying in- 

 tonation and accent, but always sweet and inspiriting. To the 

 bird's high vantage ground you may not follow, for no longer 

 having the protection of the high grass, it has become wary and 

 flies away as you approach, calling out peent-peent and nervously 

 flitting its tail (again showing the white feather), when it rests a 

 moment on the pasture fence-rail. 



It is like looking for a needle in a haystack to try to find a 

 meadowlark's nest, an unpretentious structure of dried grasses 

 partly arched over and hidden in a clump of high timothy, flat 

 upon the ground. But what havoc snakes and field-mice play 

 with the white-speckled eggs and helpless fledglings ! The care 

 of rearing two or three broods in a season and the change of 

 plumage to duller winter tints seem to exhaust the high spirits of 

 the sweet whistler. For a time he is silent, but partly regains his 

 vocal powers in the autumn, when, with large flocks of his own 

 kind, he resorts to marshy feeding grounds. In the winter he 

 chooses for companions the horned larks, that walk along the 

 shore, or the snow buntings and sparrows of the inland pastures, 

 and will even include the denizens of the barn-yard when hunger 

 drives him close to the haunts of men. 



The Western Meadowlark or Prairie Lark (Sturnella magna 

 neglecta), which many ornithologists consider a different species 

 from the foregoing, is distinguished chiefly by its lighter, more 

 grayish-brown plumage, by its yellow cheeks, and more espe- 

 cially by its richer, fuller song. In his " Birds of Manitoba" Mr. 

 Ernest E. Thompson says of this meadowlark : "In richness of 

 voice and modulation it equals or excels both wood thrush and 

 nightingale, and in the beauty of its articulation it has no superior 

 in the whole world of feathered choristers with which 1 am 

 acquainted." 



133 



