MEADOW LARK 347 



It is interesting in spring and fall to watch the wheelings 

 and evolutions a flock of these birds go through, wheeling, 

 lighting together, rising as one, circling about and again light- 

 ing on the trees or ground, all this accompanied by " chack- 

 ings " and " chuckings." 



Genus STURNELLA Vieillot. 



501. Shirnella magna (Linn.). Meadow Lark; Old Field 

 Lark. 



Plumage of summer adults : above barred with very dark brown or almost 

 black, bordered and tipped with rufous and buffy on back ; a buffy line 

 through center of crown ; tail barred, the outer tail feathers white ; sides of 

 throat and ear coverts whitish; breast with a crescentic patch of black; 

 throat, breast and upper belly otherwise yellow ; sides and lower belly whit- 

 ish with dark streaks. Plumage of winter adults and immature birds : 

 crescentic patch on breast with buffy washing; upper parts more rufous 

 brown ; yellow duller below. Females differ in having more restricted and 

 duller colored black crescent on the breast when mature. Wing 4.50 ; cul- 

 men 1.25 ; tarsus 1.70. 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern North America, breeding from the Gulf of Mexico 

 northward to New Brunswick, west to the Plains ; wintering from Massachu- 

 setts and Illinois southward. 



County Records. — Androscoggin; rare migrant, (Johnson). Cumberland; 

 rare summer resident, oftenest seen in migration, (Brown, C. B. P. p. 16); 

 one seen at Westbrook Jan. 16, and again Jan. 18, 1904, (Norton, J. M. O. S. 

 p. 94). Franklin; rare summer resident, (Swain). Hancock; at least occa- 

 sional summer resident, (Knight). Kennebec ; a few pair observed breeding, 

 (Swain). Knox; rare migrant, (Rackliff). Oxford; breeds rarely, (Nash). 

 Penobscot ; one shot at Newburg, April 8, 1898, and seen by me at Crosby's ; 

 I know of three pair breeding annually near Bangor, (Knight). Piscataquis; 

 rare, (Homer). Sagadahoc; rare, one specimen, (Spinney). Somerset; rare 

 summer resident, (Morrell); found an egg in my field at Pittsfield, July 22, 

 1904, (H.H.Johnson). Waldo; one seen, (Knight). Washington; acci- 

 dental ; one was found frozen with its head under its wing on a fence in Jan- 

 uary and brought to me, (Boardman, J. M. O. S. 1899, p. 28) ; an adult male 

 shot at Lubec, October 10, 1904, (Clark). York ; at Eliot and North Berwick 

 in spring and summer, (H. P. Libby). 



Though there are occasional instances of this species being 

 taken here in winter it is more properly a summer resident, 

 generally arriving in April from the eighth to the twentieth 



