'*^im"'] PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 575 



while perching; it is more like the prolonged trilling of the English 

 Skylark. 



June 4: Found a Meadow Lark's nest about 3 yards from the nest of 

 a Prairie Chicken. This latter I had frequently visited, so that the 

 lark had probably watched me on several occasions from a distance of 

 only 2 or 3 yards, and yet had not betrayed her charge by flinching, and 

 most likely I would not have found it had I not chanced to step nearly 

 on it. This nest now contained young ones. I watched them until 

 June 17, when T found they had flown. 



On June 2, 1883, I saw four Meadow Larks all fighting, and at the 

 same time singing in the air together. It was a curious competition 

 and lasted for a minute or more; then down into the grass they dived 

 en masse, thereto continue for several minutes their noisy battle for the 

 mastery. Possibly one of the number may have been a female, for 

 whose favors the rest were competing. 



On July 30, Miller Christy shot a young Meadow Lark, a male; 

 stomach filled with insects, apparently all coleoptera ; it had very little 

 yellow on the breast, and the crescent was represented only by a few 

 streaks. On its breast was an ulcer that nearly reached the bone; aj)- 

 parently it had been caused by a barb of a wire fence, against which 

 the bird must have flown within the last fortnight. 



Plain south of Shoal Lake, June 22, 1867: lu passing over the plain we shot a 

 Meadow Lark. These birds are found in pairs along the Red River to the end of the 

 plains, and on the south sitje of the Assiniboine, They appear in pairs in May, gener- 

 ally perched on a low tree, willow, or reed. They are very watchful, seldom allowing 

 the hunter the chance of a fair shot. (D. Gunn.) 



THE SONG OF THE PRAIRIE LARK. 



[Reproduced from the American Magazine, April, 1887.] 



How often and often we hear the hackneyed statement, "America 

 has none but scentless flowers and songless birds," and how invariably 

 we find that it proceeds from persons whose ideas of birds and flowers 

 are gathered wholly from books and magazines, and these chiefly of 

 European origin! There are many able writers ready and willing to do 

 justice to the beauty and the fragrance of our numberless wild flowers, 

 but those whose opportunities and dispositions enable them perfectly 

 to observe and completely to record what of bird song comes within 

 their ken are few in number. For this reason I wish to give publicity 

 to my observation of the Western Meadow-lark — the sweet singer of 

 the plains, and the most gifted of American feathered musicians. 



For years the skylark of England was my familiar friend, and his 

 glorious song was my daily joy. Many times have I heard the famed 

 nightingale singing by moonlight and by daylight in the shady woods 

 of Saflron Walden, in Essex, and nearly all the noted songsters of 

 England became more or less familiar during a sojourn of several years 

 as a stranger in my native land. Then came a change that brought 



