BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC. 
363 
position they are wary and difficult to approach, but when walking 
about on the ground they trust to the long grasses for protection, and 
sometimes do not take wing until one is within a few feet of them. 
In Cuba I noticed that a Meadowlark, closely related to ours, was 
very careful to conceal its brightly colored breast, with its distinctly 
marked crescent, and, although even perching birds were not shy, they 
would invariably turn their backs upon me as I drew near. 
The Meadowlark’s song is a clear, plaintive whistle of unusual 
sweetness. It is subject to much variation, both individually and 
geographically. The birds near my home at Englewood, N. J., generally 
smg: 
;§a=E 
t—t 
a==f 
But the songs of 
Florida birds are so different, I hardly recognized them by their notes. 
In the fall, Meadowlarks at the north gather in flocks and resort to 
large marshes. 
1908. Chapman, F. M., Camps and Cruises, 15 (nesting). 
501c. S. m. argutula Bangs . Southern Meadowlark. Similar to S. 
m. magna but smaller and darker. W., 4*40. 
Range . — Austroriparian and Floridian faunas from s. Ills., sw. Ind., 
and N. C., s. to the coast of se. Tex., La., and s. Fla. 
Nesting date , San Mateo, Fla., Apl. 22. 
501.1. Sturnella neglecta Aud. Western Meadowlark. Ads . — 
Prevailing color of upperparts grayish brown, crown with a central buffy 
stripe; back black, feathers widely margined with grayish brown; rump 
and upper tail-coverts with narrow black bars; outer tail-feathers mostly 
white; middle ones brownish gray, barred with black, the bars generally 
not connected, and as a rule reaching the margins of the feathers; line from 
the bill over the eye yellow; ear-coverts grayish white; throat yellow, this 
color reaching up on the sides of the throat and touching ear-coverts ; breast 
and upper belly yellow, a black crescent on breast; sides and lower belly 
whitish, spotted or streaked with black. Ads. and Im. in winter. — Upper- 
parts more widely margined with grayish brown, these grayish brown tips 
with small, broken black bars; yellow of underparts duller, the black cres- 
cent veiled with whitish. W., 4*60; T., 3*00; B., 1*25. 
Range. — W. N. Am. Breeds from s. B. C., cen. Alberta, and s. Man. s. 
to s. Calif., n. Mex., and cen. Tex.; winters from s. B. C. and Iowa, s. to L. 
Calif., and Guanajuato; e. casually to Wise., s. Mich., and n. 111., accidental 
in s. Mackenzie. 
SE. Minn., common S. R., Mch. 25-Oct. 15. 
The Western Meadowlark resembles the eastern bird in habits, 
but its markedly different song and the fact that at the junction of their 
ranges in the Mississippi Valley both birds may be found nesting with- 
out evidence of geographical intergradation, have finally won for the 
western bird the rank of a species. Just what the relations of the two 
forms may be in the Rio Grande Valley, and what part Sturnella magna 
hoopesi, of that region, plays in the problem has not yet been determined. 
The call note of neglecta is a chuck , chuck followed by a wooden 
rolling h-r-r-r-r , analogous to but very unlike the dzit or yert and metallic 
twitter of magna. The song of magna is a clean-cut fifing without 
grace notes; that of neglecta is of mellow bubbling flute-notes. The 
