Hay Days and Meadow Larks 



You have not only to provide your 

 own bread and butter, but work hard 

 all day at the apparently hopeless task 

 of filling up those downy caverns there 

 in the grass. I walked over to call on 

 them this morning. The mother was 

 foraging about where the hay was now 

 down all around the stake-protected 

 domicile, just as old "Biddy" herself 

 searches the ground for food. She 

 saw me come near, but this time made 

 no attempt at flight, and manifested 

 not the slightest fear when I walked 

 up to the brood, and bent over to in- 

 spect the family. She now apparently 

 recognized in me a friend instead of a 

 foe, and all the while her mate sat on 

 guard on top of a martin house on a 

 pole in the distance, repeating steadily 

 the call known the lark-loving world 

 over as the sweetest and most plain- 

 tive bird-note of the year; and, as 

 I walked away, I saw the watchful 

 matron in her endless patrolling of the 

 ground about the nest pursuing a 



[43] 



