Jan., 1915 
WITH RALLUS IN THE TEXAS MARSII 
slightly less in volume. It was so unexpected and so discordant that I nearly 
jumped out of my skin (figuratively speaking), entertaining the feelings of a 
pedestrian who hears a shrieking auto siren at his back. I could see that 
Ewing was affected the same way, for he turned pale with fright and was 
about to crawl under a nearby bush. I saved him from that undignified pro- 
ceeding by explaining that it was merely our friend Rallies, which had doubt- 
less been watching us with tolerance, until Ave touched her eggs, from a dist- 
ance of about fifteen feet. 
Four days passed before I visited the nest again. On Thursday Mr. How- 
ard G. Hill and 1 made the trip across the prairies, approaching the marsh from 
opposite sides. 1 had a trusty Graflex ready to spring, hut no bird appeared. 
For over an hour and a half we waited patiently near the nest, sans coat, sans 
sleeves, under the blistering rays of the tropical snn, with the nearest shelter 
three miles away. But all to no avail. 
Fig. 4. Nest and eggs of the Southern Meadowlark, photographed near Houston, 
Texas, June 11, 1914 
The nest was built up in a clump of rushes and grass, thirteen and a quar- 
ter inches above the ground, and was neatly hidden hv the thick growth of 
rushes closely surrounding it on all sides. It was a thick mass of vegetation 
(huffy rushes and grasses) five and a quarter inches thick, supported by the 
broken stalks of the rushes and by a small vine which had entwined itself 
about the stalks below. The top of the nest was slightly concave, the edges 
being an inch and a quarter above the center, and ive found it to measure nine 
and a half inches from rim to rim. 
The eggs were quite soiled and stained, being splashed and spattered with 
the oozing slime of the marsh ; they were light huffy specimens, marked with 
small spots and specks of a reddish brown which were distributed in an irreg- 
ular circle near the extremity of the larger end. They measured in inches : 
1.76x1.23; 1.69x1.19; 1.68x1.18; 1.67x1.19; 1.66x1.20; 1.66x1.17; 1.64x1.20; 
1.63x1.22; 1.63x1.19; 1.63x1.17; and 1.62x1.21. 
