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MEADOW LARK. 

 Sturnus ludovicianus, Linn. 



PLATE CXXXVI. Vol. II. p. 216. 



This beautiful bird is dispersed over all the countries intervening 

 between the shores of the Columbia River and the Gulf of Mexico. I 

 found it very abundant and breeding on the Island of Galveston in the 

 Texas, v^^here, as well as in our Southern States, it is a constant resi- 

 dent. It travels northward as far as the Saskatchewan River, where, 

 according to Dr Richardson, it arrives about the first of May, but be- 

 yond which it was not seen. In a note appended to the article on 

 this bu'd, in the Fauna Boreali- Americana, Mr Swainson says it " is 

 subject to very considerable variation, not only in its colour, but in its 

 size, and in the proportionate length of the bill. The northern speci- 

 mens are larger and much paler than those we possess from Georgia, 

 while the Pennsylvania ones are intermediate between the two, proving 

 the influence of climate or the prevalence of particular races." This 

 note is in perfect accordance with my views as regards the migrations 

 of birds, and it corroborates the fact which I have already mentioned, 

 that the larger, and consequently the stronger, birds are those which 

 remove farthest north in spring. The difference as to size and colour 

 acknowledged to exist in this species, may be observed in a greater or 

 less degree in almost every bird ; and I am fully convinced that a great 

 number of young birds, as well as females, have been converted into 

 distinct species, through the lamentable epidemic mania which has in- 

 fected the closet-naturalists, who found their fame on the invention of 

 useless names. The eggs of the Meadow Lark are an inch and two- 

 twelfths in length, and seven-eighths in breadth. 



In an adult male preserved in spirits, the roof of the mouth has a 

 median ridge anteriorly, with two ridges on the palate, which is convex 

 and ascending ; the posterior aperture of the nares linear, margined 

 with large papillae, and 8 twelfths long. The tongue is slender, 10 

 twelfths long, deeply sagittate and papillate at the base, concave above, 

 horny beneath, with a median groove, thin- edged, lacerated toward the 

 tip, which is slit to the depth of 1 twelfth. It resembles the tongue of 

 the QuiscaU, Starlings, Crows, and Thrushes. The oesophagus, ahc, is 4;^ 



