The Meadowlark 
11 
and walks quietly through the grass to its destination. Ordinarily it 
leaves its home in the same careful manner. Certain well-defined paths 
of travel may often be noted radiating from the nest. 
There is a great difference in the length of time that the young of 
various birds stay in the nest. Baby Ducks, Ouails, Killdeers, and Pheas- 
ants, as examples, can run about within a few hours after being hatched. 
It seems that about all one of these little fellows needs to do before start- 
ing in the race of life is to wait until his coat has dried and his small 
A MEADOWLARK’S NEST 
brothers and sisters have kicked themselves free from their shells. The 
nest is useful as long as he is an egg, but when he becomes a bird he 
must up and away at once. 
But how different all this is with a tiny Meadowlark, who' comes 
into the world weak and helpless ! Close to two weeks’ time must pass 
before it is strong enough to follow its mother out aipong the waving* 
grass-clumps and the towering weeds. 
Late in the summer the birds assemble and in more or less straggling* 
companies go foraging about over the fields. Sometimes one may find 
only half a dozen together, but in crossing meadows I have at times seen 
fifty or a hundred at a time. They do not fly in compact flocks like 
Blackbirds, nor do all the members of a company spring into the air at 
