'■""""C TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO M^" 



paled before the avifauna of the Chapala marshes. 

 Migration had already begun, and we were told that 

 vast numbers of Pintails and Widgeons had left for 

 the North, but untold thousands of birds were before 

 us. As far as the eye could see, living feathered forms 

 were scattered irregularly or massed in dense flocks. 

 Our guide could not understand why we did not wish 

 to shoot, but only to look, and look again, wishing 

 Ave could draw out the seconds to minutes, the min- 

 utes to hours, in which to feast our eyes upon the 

 wonderfully beautiful sight. Leaning low down on 

 our horses' necks and flattening ourselves as close to 

 the animals' sides as possible, we advanced at a slow 

 walk, now and then allowing them to take a mouth- 

 ful of grass. In this way we were able to ajaproaeh 

 closely, even among the flocks, without alarming the 

 birds. 



The air was filled with a multitude of sweet notes, — 

 half strange, half familiar, — and the sight of scores 

 of brilliant yellow breasts, crescent marked, turned 

 toward us, told us that it was a hint of well-known 

 Meadowlark music which piizzled our memory. But 

 this melody was very unlike the sharp, steel tones 

 Avhich rino;- so true across the frost-hemmed fields of 

 our Northland in early spring. The larks looked very 

 little different from our Northern birds ; their backs 

 perhaps darker and their breasts of a warmer, more 

 orange yellow. This genial, tropical air has thawed 



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