THE LARK'S "SPUTTER." 31 



" Preaching boldly to the sad the folly of despair, 

 And telling whom it may concern that all the world is fair ; " 



from the other, the plaintive notes of the meadow 

 lark. 



Lovely indeed the lark looked among the but- 

 tercups in the pasture, stretching himself up 

 from the ground, tall and slim, and almost as 

 yellow as they ; and very droll his sputtering 

 cry, as he flew over the road to the deep grass 

 of the meadow, to attend to the wants of his 

 family, for the meadow was full of mysterious 

 sounds under the grass, and seemed to give both 

 bobolink and lark much concern. 



The call I name the "sputter," because it 

 sounds like nothing else on earth, is a sort of 

 " retching " note followed by several sputtering 

 utterances, hard to describe, but not unpleasant 

 to hear, perhaps because it suggests the meadow 

 under the warm sun of June, with bobolinks 

 soaring and singing, and a populous colony be- 

 neath the long grass. Now night was coming 

 on, and the larks were passing from the pasture, 

 where they seemed to spend most of the day, 

 some with song and some with sputter, over the 

 road, to drop into the grass and be seen no 



While through the blue of the sky the swallows, flitting and 



flinging, 

 Sent their slender twitterings down from a thousand throats." 



