I 



90 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



western meadow-larks. Persons who live in the East 

 and are familiar with the songs of the common mead- 

 ow-lark, should hear the vocal performances of the 

 westerners. The first time I heard one of them, the 

 minstrelsy was so strange to my ear, so different from 

 anything I had ever heard, I was thrown into an 

 ecstasy of delight, and could not imagine from what 

 kind of bird larynx so quaint a medley could emanate. 

 The song opened with a loud, fine, piercing whistle, and 

 ended with an abrupt staccato gurgle much lower in the 

 musical staff, sounding precisely as if the soloist's per- 

 formance had been suddenly choked off by the rising of 

 water in the windpipe. It was something after the 

 order of the purple martin's melodious sputter, only 

 the tones were richer and fuller and the music better 

 defined, as became a genuine oscine. His sudden and 

 emphatic cessation seemed to indicate that he was in 

 a petulant mood, perhaps impatient with the intruder, 

 or angry with a rival songster. 



Afterwards I heard him or, rather, one of his 

 brothers sing arias so surpassingly sweet that I voted 

 him the master minstrel of the western plains, prairies, 

 and meadows. One evening as I was returning to Colo- 

 rado Springs from a long tramp through one of the 

 canons of the mountains, a western meadow-lark sat 

 on a small tree and sang six different tunes within 

 the space of a few minutes. Two of them were so 



