NOTES BY THE WAY 133 



long, sharp wings, and something in his manner of 

 flight that suggested a shore-bird. I followed him 

 about the meadow and got several snatches of song 

 out of him, but not again the soaring, skyward 

 flight and copious musical shower. By appearing 

 to pass by, I several times got within a few yards 

 of him ; as I drew near he would squat in the stub- 

 ble, and then suddenly start up, and, when fairly 

 launched, sing briefly till he alighted again fifteen 

 or twenty rods away. I came twice the next day 

 and twice the next, and each time found the lark 

 in the meadow or heard his song from the air or 

 the sky. What was especially interesting was that 

 the lark had "singled out with aff'ection" one of 

 our native birds, and the one that most resembled 

 its kind, namely, the vesper sparrow, or grass finch. 

 To this bird I saw him paying his addresses with 

 the greatest assiduity. He would follow it about 

 and hover above it, and by many gentle indirections 

 seek to approach it. But the sparrow was shy, and 

 evidently did not know what to make of her distin- 

 guished foreign lover. It would sometimes take 

 refuge in a bush, when the lark, not being a percher, 

 would alight upon the ground beneath it. This 

 sparrow looks enough like the lark to be a near 

 relation. Its color is precisely the same, and it has 

 the distinguishing mark of the two lateral white 

 quills in its tail. It has the same habit of skulking 

 in the stubble or the grass as you approach; it is 

 exclusively a field-bird, and certain of its notes 

 might have been copied from the lark's song. In 



