Song Birds in Eitrope a7id America. 



129 



prairies of Manitoba, where the melodious 

 and powerful warblings of the Western 

 meadowlark were, to his ear, superior in 

 richness and strength to the song of the 

 famed nightingale, while the silvery trills 

 of the Missouri skylark also exceeded in 

 sweetness the more powerful, but far from 

 musical, rattling warble of the English 

 species. 



The writer has on many occasions 

 heard, early on mornings in May and June, 

 grand concerts of bird music, which prob- 

 ably would challenge comparison, both as 

 to quality and quantity, with any to be 

 heard in other portions of the world, ex- 

 cepting, probably, the highlands of Mexico, 

 which are said, and probably with truth, 

 to be without a rival in number and quality 

 of songsters. The following list is copied 

 from my note-book, and was made during 

 the progress of such a concert, the birds 

 named singing simultaneously in my 

 immediate vicinity. The locality was not 

 a particularly favorable one, being two 

 miles from a small village, and at least 

 three-fourths of the vicinity either heavy 

 woodland or wooded swamp. The date 

 May 12, and the locality southwestern 

 Indiana: 



Four cardinal grosbeaks, three indigo 

 buntings, numerous American goldfinches, 

 one white-eyed vireo, one Maryland yellow- 

 throat, one field sparrow, one Carolina 

 wren, one tufted titmouse, one gray-cheeked 

 thrush, one yellow-breasted chat, one Lou- 

 isiana water-thrush, one red-eyed vireo, 

 and two mourning doves — in all thirteen 

 species, and at least twice that number of 

 individuals ! And here is a list of birds 

 heard singing one day in June, about the 

 edge of a prairie in southern Illinois: Two 

 mockingbirds, one brown thrasher, three 

 yellow-breasted chats, one warbling vireo, 

 one Baltimore oriole, several meadowlarks, 

 numerous dickcissels and Henslow's and 

 grasshopper sparrows, one lark sparrow, 

 one robin, one towhee, one catbird, one 



wood thrush, one oven bird, one summer 

 tanager, several tufted titmice, one red- 

 eyed vireo, one Bell's vireo, one white-eyed 

 vireo, one cardinal grosbeak, one indigo 

 bunting, two Maryland yellow-throats, one 

 field sparrow, and one prairie lark — the 

 latter a true lark, singing while suspended 

 in mid-air, exactly in the manner of a sky- 

 lark ; in all, twenty-five species and per- 

 haps fifty individuals. Is such a rich med- 

 ley of bird music often, if ever, excelled 

 in England ? It is true that neither the 

 skylark nor the nightingale nor the 

 song thrush were included, but they were 

 each represented, and well represented 

 too ; the first, if not by the prairie lark, 

 whose manner of singing is identical, but 

 whose song is comparatively feeble, then by 

 his namesake the meadowlark, of which 

 Wilson — himself a Scotchman — says that, 

 although it " cannot boast the powers of 

 song " which distinguish the skylark, "yet 

 in richness of plumage as well as in sweet- 

 ness of voice * * * stands eminently its 

 superior'^ (italics our own); the second by 

 the mockingbird, whose song is unrivalled 

 for its combination of richness, variety, 

 compass, volubility and vivacity ; and the 

 third by the brown thrasher, whose ener- 

 getic, powerful and untiring melody is 

 said to closely resemble in modulation that 

 of the song thrush. Not less than half a 

 dozen of the remaining species are song- 

 sters of very pronounced merit, probably 

 equalling, in one quality or another of 

 song, the best of European singers, except- 

 ing that celebrated trio, the nightingale, 

 song thrush and skylark. 



It thus appears that the apparent defi- 

 ciency of singing birds in the United States 

 is an artificial rather than a natural condi- 

 tion, characteristic, so far as the settled or 

 cultivated portions are concerned, of the 

 more densely inhabited centers, where 

 birds have been actually driven off by the 

 persecutions of the pot-hunter, to whom 

 anything with feathers is game, and by the 



