The Meadow 
Lark’s nest is the 
treasure trove of 
every farm boy. 
Eggs may be 
looked for the first 
week in May, or 
earlier as one pro- 
ceeds south. The 
female is a close 
sitter, sometimes 
allowing approach 
within a foot or 
two before flush- 
ing. Oftener, how- 
ever, she leaves 
the nest at the ap- 
Photo by Rev. W. F. Henninger. 
NEST AND EGGS OF MEADOWLARK. proach of danger 
and sneaks away 
with consummate skill, until she chooses to discover herself at a distance suff- 
cient to mislead. The nests are well hidden in the deeper grass of meadows 
and pastures, and are frequently overarched with dried grasses, not so much 
for the purpose of protection against the weather, as has been suggested, but 
as a further aid to concealment. 
According to Dr. Jones, a favorite way to locate the Meadow Lark’s nest 
is to pass right by the anxious male as he stands on some post twitching his tail 
nervously and shouting signal calls to his sitting mate. When he thinks the 
danger past he will, as likely as not, fly straight to the hidden nest, chuckling 
with self-approbation and eager to tell Mrs. Magna all about it. 
Besides the familiar whistling song of three or four notes, Meadow Lark 
occasionally indulges a perfect whirlwind of bubbling notes, interspersed with 
whistled “whews,’’delivered while sailing down on stiffened wing, or fluttering 
about in an excited circle, always, we may be sure, for the benefit of his enam- 
orata. Heis also much given to a sort of rubbing, rattling cry, very expressive, 
but very hard to reproduce or describe. This is the language of ordinary Stur- 
nelline intercourse. With it he sputters his indignation at an intruding 
stranger, or congratulates himself upon having sucessfully outwitted a passing 
hawk. In this dialect too he pours forth a flood of blarney and sweet talk 
during a tete-a-tete with some gracious female. 
Meadow Lark has an impressive note of apprehension and strong emotion, 
sweet, delivered in a half-crouching posture. Again he boasts another, even 
more startling, a note of alarm and eminent distrust, turk, or turk, turk, 
