I knew from experience that either eggs 

 or young were close to where I espied 

 the female silently skulking away, and 

 not on the other side of the lot where both 

 birds were raising such commotion. I 

 rather doubted the possibility of finding 

 eggs so late in the season, but I soon dis- 

 covered four beauties, among a cluster of 

 pebbles, beside a hill of corn. The par- 

 ent birds had made a slight hollow in the 

 soft black earth, around which they had 

 arranged in an artistic fashion fragments 

 of decayed wood and roots. Surrounded 

 by little stones, the eggs harmonized in 



color, and although the nest was in an 

 exposed condition from all sides, they 

 might easily have escaped the eye of the 

 casual observer. This set of eggs have a 

 clay-colored background, upon which 

 large scrawls and pen lines of dark 

 brown and black form peculiar markings 

 over almost the entire surface. They are 

 pear-shaped, very pointed, and are 

 slightly concaved near the small end. 

 Their size is 1.50 inches long by 1.10 

 inches. This is about normal in size for 

 eggs of the Kildeer. 



Gerard Alan Abbott. 



MEADOW LARK. 



Sturnella Magna. 



A creature not too bright and good 

 For human nature's daily food. 

 ***** 



And yet a spirit still, and bright 

 With something of angelic light. 



— William Wordsworth. 



"As gay, as gamesome and as blithe," 

 as Hartley Coleridge's "Certain Gold- 

 fishes," the Meadow Lark conveys a mys- 

 terious breezy suggestion as of green 

 pastures and still waters, which does not 

 fail of recognition by even the most pro- 

 saic of his auditors, while Mrs. Olive 

 TJiorne Miller says of him : 



"As we turn into the gate another 

 voice strikes our ear, louder, richer, more 

 attention-compelling than any we have 

 heard. Listen ; it is the most intoxi- 

 cating, the most soul-stirring of bird 

 voices in a land where thrushes are ab- 

 sent; it embodies the solitude, the vast- 

 ness, the mystery of the mesa; it is the 

 Western Meadow Lark. This is his nest- 

 ing time, and we may be treated to his 

 love-song, the exquisite, whispered aria 

 he addresses to his mate. As I heard 

 it when very close to him, he sings his 

 common strain several times and then 

 drops to a very low twittering and trilling 

 warble, in which now and then is inter- 

 polated a note or two of the usual score, 

 yet the whole altogether different in spirit 



and execution. He ends by a burst into 

 the loud carol he offers to the world. 

 There is nothing beyond that to hear, 

 even in my beloved nook." 



Of the same lark of the West, Stur- 

 nella magna neglecta, Dr. Allen writes : 



"It differs from the Meadow Lark of 

 the eastern states in the notes being 

 louder and wilder, and at the same time 

 more liquid, mellower and far sweeter. 

 They have a pensiveness and general 

 character remarkably in harmony with 

 the half-dreamy wildness of the primitive 

 prairie, as though the bird had received 

 from its surroundings their peculiar im- 

 press. It differs, too, in the less fre- 

 quency of the harsh, complaining chat- 

 ters so conspicuous in the Eastern b;rd." 

 And in describing an unusual song of a 

 Baltimore oriole he says: "So much 

 did it resemble a part of the song of the 

 Western Meadow Lark that it at once 

 not only recalled the bird, but the wild, 

 grassy, undulating primitive prairie 

 landscape where I had heard it, and 

 with which the loud, clear, rich, mellow 



173 



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