is not so well known as his voice and meadow-marked 
back. The latter is usually turned toward sight-seeing 
visitors, so that his bright color cannot be seen, and he is — 
unnoticed until he starts to fly. Then his white outer tail 
feathers call attention to him as he springs into the air and 
_ sails down some distance away into the grass. 
Although he has but few notes he has a great way OF. 
arranging them in many melodies. He tries out a theme, 
varies it a little, goes back to the first form, adds a note, 
drops another, combines his themes and tries it all over 
: again, but always keeps his own peculiar vibrant quality. 
It tempts many a listener to put words to his music, 
4 sometimes in a most prosaic fashion. A lady in Seattle 
asked, “What is the bird that sings ‘Say, girls, where did 
eaten 
LN aca | oot URC ae eee ee en ak ae Nee pg RE Rae RM MCR TRL? aoe Ryan og Se NRE Or WMI va TL Me MNES Act eMEnG aM wat USIE ANT eT aay (rie tah TRS usm toon Men puihin SNOB MEAT ER IE Mh ei 
you get the milk?’”’ Never had the lecturer heard a bird 
make such a remark, but a few days later, a Western | 
Meadowlark sang that same question over and over while 
she waited for a streetcar, and they often seem to sing, 
“do, sol, me, do,” beginning with high do. 
One evening in Cheney, Washington, just as the last 
rays of sunlight were gilding the windows of the Normal 
School building and most of the birds were settling them- 
selves in their sleeping quarter, out beyond the railroad 
tracks a meadowlark, seated on a telephone pole, called 
many times, “Peter! Peter! Dear, have you had company ?” 
Another meadowlark answered, so far away that the words 
were lost, but not the quality of the song. As the darkness 
rose and the shadows grew, bird song began to be sleepily 
sung. The last notes heard were from the bird on the pole, 
_ given in a most wide awake manner “Peter! Peter! Come 
here to me!” We had a feeling that, perhaps, Peter’s com- 
pany had led him into trouble, and that a settlement came 
to him in tones that were too low for mortal ears to catch. 
159 
