MEADOWLARK. 263 



short and quick, it is rather heavy and jerky. When the bird first rises from the ground, 

 it flutters like a young bird until it has ascended twenty or thirty feet, when it pursues 

 a bee-line course, with alternate saiHngs, and flutters until ready to alight, which is 

 usually not at any great distance. When assembled in flocks shortly after their arrival 

 or when ready to leave in the fall, they also never fly very far. They may start earnestly, 

 but finding a favorable locality usually one after another is flying down to the ground, 

 where they walk about in a very graceful attitude. In the height of the migration the 

 flocks ascend high into the air and then they fly with great speed. 



In Wisconsin the birds begin to build their nests early in May, in south-western 

 Missouri fully a month earlier, and in south-eastern Texas full sets of eggs are found 

 by the middle of March. The female constructs the nest alone, Tvhile the male is singing 

 to her his sweetest notes. The structure is always placed on the ground, usually in the 

 shelter of a thick tuft of grass, on the side of a few corn-stalks, a bunch of clover, etc. 

 Often a covered passage is built to their hidden nest. This entrance is usually formed 

 of withered grass, and so well conceals the nest that it can only be detected by flushing 

 the female from it, or by the anxiety of her mate, who will frequently fly round the 

 spot in so narrow a circuit as to betray its location. In many cases the nest is arched 

 over on one side. These arched nests I have only found when nothing else was present 

 to give the structure privacy. Usually it is placed in a slight depression of the soil. It 

 is constructed of coarse grasses and lined with finer ones. The eggs, usually four in 

 number, have a white ground-color and are marked irregularly with reddish-brown spots 

 and lilac shell-marks. When the young have left the nest a second brood usually follows, 

 and in the South often a third one. The parents are so much attached to their young 

 that they utter the saddest notes if some accident befalls them. They fly around in 

 great distress, for several days bemoaning their young in the most lamenting and 

 mournful tones. "The saddest and most reproachful strains which birds have ever 

 poured into my ear w^ere uttered for days in succession from a Meadowlark whom I 

 had deprived of his mate and his home during his brief absence. Not knowing what 

 had become of them, he called so incessantly, with such sad surprise at no answer, such 

 mournful beseeching and lamentation, that it made my heart ache."* 



The Meadowlark is almost an ideal bird, one of our most valuable songsters. 

 How^ beautifully contrasts the bright yellow^ with the deep black crescent on the breast 

 in the sunshine of a lovely spring day's morning! And how impressive are the loud 

 and exhilerating notes ! When the farmer in the early morning follows his team to the 

 field, his ear catches the finest and most delightful strains. Usually the bird is perched 

 at this time on a feflce-post or a rail while singing, and in performing its song it assumes 

 an upright, proud position. Almost all day long it is the plougher's companion, follow- 

 ing the fresh furrows to pick up grubs and all kinds of noxious insects, singing at the 

 same time almost incessantly. 



The song is exceedingly sweet and very charming. Any suitable stretch of grass 

 land, every clover and grain-field may have its pair or its colony of Meadowlarks, 

 "making very sweet idyllic music during the season of exultation. Great tenderness, 

 almost pathos, is expressed in the liquid, sympathetic voice of these faithful creatures 



• Stearns & Coues, New England Bird-life. Vol. I, p. 302. 



