d
flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before you in much the
same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. Its yellow
breast, surmounted by a black crescent, it need not be ashamed to turn
to the morning sun, while its coat of mottled gray is in perfect
keeping with the stubble amid which it walks.

The two lateral white quills in its tails seem strictly in character.
These quills spring from a dash of scorn and defiance in the bird's
make-up. By the aid of these, it can almost emit a flash as it struts
about the fields and jerks out its sharp notes. They give a rayed, a
definite and piquant expression to its movements. This bird is not
properly a lark, but a starling, say the ornithologists, though it is
lark-like in its habits, being a walker and entirely a ground-bird.
Its color also allies it to the true lark. I believe there is no bird
in the English or European fields that answers to this hardy
pedestrian of our meadows. He is a true American, and his note one of
our characteristic April sounds.

Another marked April note, proceeding sometimes from the meadows, but
more frequently from the rough pastures and borders of the woods, is
the call of the high-hole, or golden-shafted woodpecker. It is quite
as strong as that of the meadow-lark, but not so long-drawn and
piercing. It is a succession of short notes rapidly uttered, as if the
bird said "_if-if-if-if-if-if-if_." The notes of the ordinary downy
and hairy woodpeckers suggest, in some way, the sound of a steel
punch; but that of the high-hole is much softer, and strikes on the
ear with real springtime melody. The high-hole is not so much a
wood-pecker as he is a ground-pecker. He subsists largely on ants and
crickets, and does not appear till they are to be found.

In Solomon's description of spring, the voice of the turtle is
prominent, but our turtle, or mourning dove, though it arrives in
April, can hardly be said to contribute noticeably to the open-air
sounds. Its call is so vague, and soft, and mournful,--in fact, so
remote and diffused,--that few persons ever hear it at all.

Such songsters as the cow blackbird are noticeable at this season,
though they take a back seat a little later. It utters a peculiarly
liquid April sound. Indeed, one would think its crop was full of
water, its notes so bubble up and regurgitate, and are delivered with
such an apparent stomachic contraction. This bird is the only
feathered polygamist we have