The Western Meadow=lark. 
MONG the 
song--birds of 
Colorado none 
will more com¬ 
pletely win the 
interest and ad¬ 
miration of all 
than the meadow-lark of the West 
(Sturnella neglecta). Popularly called 
a lark, he is really a member—and that, 
too, an important one—of the Amer¬ 
ican starling' family, which includes 
the orioles, and is quite different from 
the starling's proner. He is the warbler 
par excellence among* all the varieties of 
song-sters that in this region have come 
under my notice, and l doubt if the 
“lark of the poets” (Alauda arvensis) 
is more than a rival of this wondrous 
singer of the plains. The soaring lark 
may have greater lung power, but 
hardly can his tones be more clear and 
liquid, or his repertory of songs con¬ 
tain a more varied selection. He is 
certainly inferior in personal beauty, 
and he sings as he flies, while the 
meadow-lark of the West makes any 
convenient post, rock, or tuft of grass 
or weeds his stage, and there sings to 
you by the hour. 
However slight may be the technical 
points in which this songster may 
differ from the Eastern meadow-lark, 
the difference in song is certainly very 
marked, as noted by all observers since 
Audubon. While there is much greater 
variety, there is also a quality in his 
tones which would make them seem al¬ 
most out of place in an Eastern grove 
or meadow. They are also loud 
eneough to be heard a long distance, 
even in the face of the stiff breezes 
which blow here during much of the 
time that the birds make their sojourn 
with us. The sweet and mellow char¬ 
acter or flute tones, or those of the 
smaller kinds of wooden organ-pipes, 
would perhaps give a musical ear some 
idea of the quality of our singer’s notes; 
but besides this Ihey are posessed of a 
wild, indescribable quality that is in 
strict keeping with the nature of his 
haunts—mountain valleys which are 
rude and retired, and the treeless, half¬ 
dreary, semi-barbaric plains of the 
West. He is heard most frequently in 
