8o Handbook of Nature-Study 



THE MEADOW-LARK 



Teaclicr's Story 



The first intimation we have in early spring, that 

 the meadow-lark is again with us, comes to us 

 through his soft, sweet, sad note which Van Dyke 

 describes so graphically when he says it, "leaks 

 slowly upward from the ground." One wonders 

 how a bird can express happiness in these melan- 

 choly, sweet, slurred notes and yet undoubtedly it 

 is a song expressing joy, the joy of returning home, 

 the happiness of love and of nest building. But 

 after one has spent a winter in the Gulf States, and 

 has witnessed the slaughter there of this most 

 valuable bird; and after the northern stomach and 

 heart have turned sick at the sight of breasts once so full of song done 

 brown on the luncheon table, one no longer wonders that the meadow- 

 lark's song of joy is fraught with sadness. There should be national laws 

 to protect the birds that are of value to one part of the United States from 

 being slaughtered in their winter haunts, unless they are there a nuisance 

 and injurious to crops, which is not the case with the meadow-lark. 



The meadow-lark, as is indicated by its name, is a bird of the meadow. 

 It is often confused with another bird of the meadow which has ver}^ 

 different habits, the flicker. The two are approximately of the same size 

 and color and each has a black crescent or locket on the breast and each 

 shows the "white feather" during flight. The latter is the chief dis- 

 tinguishing character; the outer tail feathers of the meadow-lark are 

 white, while the tail feathers of the flicker are not white at all, but it has 

 a single patch of white on th:= rump. The flight of the two is quite 

 different. The lark lifts itself by several sharp movements and then 

 soars smoothly over the course, while the flicker makes a continuous up 

 and down, wave-like flight. The songs of the two would surely never be 

 confused, for the meadow-lark is among our sweetest singers, to which 

 class the flicker with his "flick a flick" hardly belongs. 



The color s of the meadow-lark are most harmonious shades of brown 

 and yeiiow, well set off by the black locket on its breast. Its wings are 

 light brown, each feather being streaked with black and brown ; the line 

 above the eye is yellow, bordered with black above and below; a buff line 

 extends from the beak backward over the crown. The wings are light 

 brown and have a mere suggestion of white bars; portions of the outer 

 feathers on each side of the tail are white, but this white does not show 

 except during flight. The sides of the throat are greenish, the middle 

 part and breast are lemon-yellow, with the large, black crescent just below 

 the throat. The beak is long, strong and black, and the meadow-lark is 

 decidedly a low-browed bird, the forehead being only slightly higher than 

 the upper part of the beak. It is a little larger than the robin which it 

 rivals in plumpness. 



The meadow-lark has a particular liking for meadows which border 

 streams. It sings when on the ground, on the bush or fence and while on 

 the wing; and it sings during the entire period of its northern stay, from 

 April to November, except while it is moulting in late summer. Mr. 

 Mathews, who is an eminent authority on bird songs, says that the 



