DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 29 



in the opera of Rtgoletio. On July 14, 1909, near my present 

 home, two miles farther into Maryland, I heard the theme, 

 shown in Record 19 which, though it has a ponderous look, was 

 sung with graceful slurs that robbed it of all heaviness. 



Two more only will I select out of my large store — I have 118 

 notations of songs of the eastern Meadowlark. One was sung 

 near my home on the 4th of July, 1911, Avithout the usual 

 Meadowlark •portamento slur, and even slightly staccato (Rec. 20). 

 The other was given on the 7th of June, 1913, by a Setauket, 

 Long Island, Meadowlark (Rec. 21). In the last example the 

 first three notes were perfectly true to our scale and were 

 staccato. The last three were not quite so true. The final note 

 was a tsee, like one of the afternotes of a Wood Thrush, though 

 less emphatic and not so metallic. 



I could tell also of a flight-song, an ecstatic warble like that of 

 an Indigo Bunting and uttered in like manner while descending 

 from a height ; of the geographic difference in voice and style of 

 song between Meadowlarks of the Middle West and those east of 

 the Alleghanies, birds that are not even subspecifically differen- 

 tiated ; of different degrees in beauty of tone or adherence to the 

 intervals of the diatonic scale ; of variant lengths of songs, ranging 

 from two notes to a dozen or more ; of differences in what seems 

 to be actual appreciation of melodic beauty on the birds' part. 

 I could also take up many other species of song-birds and show 

 that the same rule of individual variety holds with each. But 

 my paper is already too long and I will content myself with 

 letting the case rest here, satisfied if I shall have aided in awak- 

 ening in the minds of any of the readers of Cassinia a new and 

 fuller sense of the great variety in the songs of the birds. 



