A Window in Arcady 
ing the characteristic yellow breast of their kind and two 
conspicuous shafts of white, one at each side of the tail. 
The flight of the meadow lark is often in circles, and if 
you happen to be in the centre about which he whirls it 
makes your brain reel to follow him. He is, by the way, 
in spite of his name, no relation to the Shakespearean song¬ 
ster at heaven’s gate; indeed is less lark than starling. 
Now that the red maples are through blooming, the 
sugar maples have begun. These attract less attention 
than their florid cousins, but to people who have open 
eyes for the less showy side of nature few sights are more 
charming than a sugar tree in flower. From the midst of 
the opening leaf buds at the branch tips the greenish-yellow 
blossoms swing in long-stalked clusters, enveloping the 
crown in a tender mist of inexpressible loveliness. Al¬ 
though the sugar tree is a native of the United States from 
New England to the Gulf, the specimens to be seen along 
our roadsides are mostly of man’s setting out, not Nature’s, 
for it is one of the most satisfactory trees to transplant, 
growing readily in almost any environment. A curious 
characteristic is its bark, which is frequently of two dis¬ 
tinct sorts on the same tree—the upper bole and branches 
being covered with the smooth, silvery skin that we usually 
associate with maples, while the lower trunk is encased 
in a cracked, flaky integument resembling that of the shell- 
bark hickory. In Pennsylvania this maple is especially 
abundant in the highlands of Somerset County, which 
contains the most elevated land in this State. There it 
is the commonest of trees; almost every farm has its sugar 
grove, and the region ranks with the most important maple 
[44] 
