J44 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



135. Sturnella magna (Linn.). 

 Meadowlark. Marsh Quail. Lark. 



Permanent resident, formerly abundant and still not uncommon in summer, occurring 

 regularly, but only locally and in limited numbers, in winter. 



NESTING DATES. 



May 28 — June 8. 



The Meadowlark will ever be intimately associated in my mind with the 

 Bobolink, and both species with the level, grassy fields and meadows which, in 

 my younger days, stretched uninterruptedly from the old reservoir on Highland 

 Street, Cambridge, to Fresh Pond. Here both birds bred numerously up to 

 about 1875, and sparingly for a few years later. The Bobolinks usually removed 

 to the neighboring swamps as soon as their young had become strong on the 

 wing ; but the Larks invariably remained in the fields until late in the autumn, 

 and in October I have seen as many as thirty or forty of them collected within 

 the space of a single acre. We used to regard them as legitimate game and to 

 hunt them eagerly and persistently, but they were so very wary that even the 

 younger and less sophisticated birds were by no means easy to bag. They 

 afforded us many exciting and valuable lessons in the art of stalking, for we 

 usually attempted to approach them in that way, taking advantage of inequaUties 

 in the surface of the ground, or of such cover as was furnished by isolated bushes 

 or tufts of tall grass, and crossing the more open spaces by crawling on hands and 

 knees — or even wriggling, snake-fashion, on our stomachs — through the scanty, 

 drought-parched herbage. Another plan, sometimes crowned by success but 

 much oftener resulting in failure, was that of driving the flock towards some 

 place where one or more of our number had been concealed. At evening we 

 occasionally obtained flying shots at close range by stumbUng on birds which had 

 gone to roost in beds of matted meadow grass, where I have known them to lie 

 almost as closely as scattered Quail. 



Another favorite and still more extensive summer resort of the Meadowlark 

 in those early days was the tract of open country lying between Belmont and Hill's 

 Crossing. Very many birds also used to inhabit the broad mowing fields of the 

 Adams estate in Watertown. These two stations have not been, as yet, wholly 

 abandoned, and there are other localities in Watertown and Belmont where a few 

 Meadowlarks continue to nest more or less regularly, while one or two pairs 



