SPRING JOTTINGS 165 



fling, gurgling, lisping, half inarticulate song. 

 Only of late years have I noticed the shore larks 

 in this section. Now they breed and pass the 

 summer on these hills, and I am told that they 

 are gradually becoming permanent residents in 

 other parts of the State. They are nearly as 

 large as the English skylark, with conspicuous 

 black markings about the head and throat; shy 

 birds squatting in the sear grass, and probably 

 taken by most country people who see them to 

 be sparrows. 



Their flight and manner in song is much like 

 that of the skylark. The bird mounts up and 

 up on ecstatic wing, till it becomes a mere speck 

 against the sky, where it drifts to and fro, and 

 utters at intervals its crude song, a mere fraction 

 or rudiment of the skylark's song, a few sharp, 

 lisping, unmelodious notes, as if the bird had a 

 bad cold and could only now and then make any 

 sound, — heard a long distance, but insignificant, 

 a mere germ of the true lark's song; as it were 

 the first rude attempt of nature in this direction. 

 After due trial and waiting, she develops the 

 lark's song itself. But if the law of evolution 

 applies to bird-songs as well as to other things, 

 the shore lark should in time become a fine 

 songster. I know of no bird-song that seems 

 so obviously struggling to free itself and reach a 

 fuller expression. As the bird seems more and 

 more inclined to abide permanently amid culti- 

 vated fields, and to forsake the wild and savage 

 north, let me hope that its song is also under- 

 going a favorable change. 



