THE MEADOWLARK 
By T. GILBERT PEARSON 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 3 
Uncle Pauldo' was old, and black, and extremely lazy, but he was most 
entertaining to a certain boy of nine years who learned from him many 
things about birds and animals and ‘Varmints/’ One day the boy went 
to the cotton-field with a message and met Uncle Pauldo at the big dead 
pine where he had just come for water. As he lifted the water-gourd to 
his lips, a Meadowlark sang cheerily from the fence a few rods away. 
“There now/’ exclaimed the old man, “do you 
know what de OF Fiel’ Lark is hollerin’? You don’t? Unde Pauldo s 
Well, when he sing dat bird is sayin’ ‘Laziness will 
kill you.’ ” 
Perhaps Uncle Pauldo spoke truthfully — I cannot say ; but I do know 
that all through the years since that day whenever the boy has heard a 
Meadowlark sending its clear song ringing across the fields, to his ears 
those are the words it seems to say. 
Of all the twelve hundred kinds of birds found in North America 
there are comparatively few whose notes people commonly translate into 
words. Who, for example, ever heard of a writer trying to state in 
English language what a Wren says in Wren language, or who will tell 
us in plain words what a Red-headed Woodpecker is talking about when 
he shouts to his mate from the old dead limb ? 
Among those birds, however,, that are popularly supposed to say things 
one can understand is the Meadowlark, but, as usual, in similar cases 
all hearers do not agree as to what is the proper translation. Some New 
England people entertain the idea that the bird sings “Spring o’ the 
Y-e-a-r !” While there are those in New Jersey to whose ear the song 
sounds like this : “I see y-o-u-u-u ! You ca-a-a-n’t see me-e-e-e !” 
Let it be borne in mind that this bird’s song has a distinct quality about 
it that at once sets it off from the songs of any other denizen of the 
countryside. This much may be said of it for a cer- 
tainty, that once heard distinctly it is not probable of^th 9 ^ 
that one will fail to recall its author the next time its 0 e on ^ 
chime-like whistle comes down on the wind. A young bird-student may 
at times be puzzled to distinguish between the song of the Red-eyed Vireo 
and that of the Robin, or may become confused in endeavoring to tell 
which of the Warblers is singing in the tree-tops near by, but to hear the 
Meadowlark at his best is to listen to a song that will ever afterward be 
known to him, 
