^''isoo'"'] PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 577 



Or oue yet more characteristic : 



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A.ud also, as the vsoasou advances, by a third and hunger chant: 



These bars, reproduced on a flute, will suggest with lair accuracy the 

 mere notes of the song; but they can not suggest the bleak prairie 

 scene nor the blizzard that fails to drown the singer's voice; nor the 

 long, silent months gone by, without which the life and meaning and 

 true feeling of the stirring call can not be understood. 



As the full springtime comes on, the number of these sliort chants 

 is greatly increased, whilst their prolongations and variations are with- 

 out number; ami soon it becomes evident to the most casual observer 

 that the love-lires are kindling, and that each musician is striving to 

 the utmost of his powers to surpass all rivals and win the lady lark of 

 his choice. On one occasion, as I lay in hiding near a fV.nce, three larks 

 came skimming over the plain. They alighted within a few yards of 

 me, and two of them burst into song, sometimes singing together and 

 sometimes alternately, but the third was silent. When at last they 

 flew up I noticed that the silent one and one of the singers kept together. 

 I had been witness to a musical tournament and the victor had won his 

 bride. 



Nor does the lovefiie languish after mating; for now the lark is in- 

 spired anew, and springing up from the grass he soars high in the air 

 and pours forth a rhapsody that seems to flood the very plains with 

 sound — ringing and bursting; richer far than song of nightingale; pro- 

 longed like the skylark's melody; wild with passion and Are, and more 

 varied than tongue or type can tell. Often have 1 tried to record the 

 changing bars of music, but never with any but the most trifling suc- 

 cess. A few of the notes were caught, but the volume of the song was 

 far beyond the power of symbol or staff to represent. Commonly the 

 refrain began with a part nearly thus: 

 Allegro. 



m 





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•994- 



succeeded after several repetitions by another ; 



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Proc. N. M. 90 37 



