s a most persistent and vociferous songster, and
fully as successful a mimic as the mockingbird. It pours out a strain
that is a regular mosaic of nearly all the bird-notes to be heard, its
own proper lark song forming a kind of bordering for the whole. The
notes of the phoebe-bird, the purple finch, the swallow, the yellowbird,
the kingbird, the robin, and others, are rendered with perfect
distinctness and accuracy, but not a word of the bobolink's, though the
lark must have heard its song every day for four successive summers. It
was the one conspicuous note in the fields around that the lark made no
attempt to plagiarize. He could not steal the bobolink's thunder.

The lark is a more marvelous songster than the bobolink only on account
of his soaring flight and the sustained copiousness of his song. His
note is rasping and harsh, in point of melody, when compared with the
bobolink's. When caged and near at hand, the lark's song is positively
disagreeable, it is so loud and full of sharp, aspirated sounds. But
high in air above the broad downs, poured out without interruption for
many minutes together, it is very agreeable.

The bird among us that is usually called a lark, namely, the meadowlark,
but which our later classifiers say is no lark at all, has nearly the
same quality of voice as the English skylark,--loud, piercing, z-z-ing;
and during the mating season it frequently indulges while on the wing in
a brief song that is quite lark-like. It is also a bird of the stubble,
and one of the last to retreat on the approach of winter.

The habits of many of our birds are slowly undergoing a change. Their
migrations are less marked. With the settlement and cultivation of the
country, the means of subsistence of nearly every species are vastly
increased. Insects are more numerous, and seeds of weeds and grasses
more abundant. They become more and more domestic, like the English
birds. The swallows have nearly all left their original abodes--hollow
trees, and cliffs, and rocks--for human habitations and their
environments. Where did the barn swallow nest before the country was
settled? The chimney swallow nested in hollow trees, and, perhaps,
occasionally resorts thither yet. But the chimney, notwithstanding the
smoke, seems to suit his taste best. In the spring, before they have
paired, I think these swallows sometimes pass the night in the woods,
but not if an old, disused chimney is handy.

One evening in early May