LARK. The Meadow lark, or American starling is the best known of our larks. Its song is of exceeding sweetness, the few plaintive notes it utters being wel come to all as one of the earliest harbingers of spring. It is one of the most beneficial of birds to the farmers, living exclusively on in sects and seeds in the cultivated fields and meadows. It is one of our most common birds West, is found in the southern New En gland States, and thence South and West. Nuttall says, in mild winters it remains through the year, but generally leaves for the South late in the fall, and returns about the second or third week in March, It commences building about the second week in May, sometimes earlier the locality is generally in a meadow or low field. The nest is usually built in a tussock of grass; it is pretty compact, made of dry, wiry grass, to which a hidden and almost winding path is made, and gen erally so well concealed that the nest is only to be found when the bird is flushed. Their food con
sists of the laryte of various in sects, as well as worms, beetles and grass seeds, to assist the diges tion of which they swallow a con siderable portion of gravel. It does not appear that this species ever adds berries or fruits of any kind to his fare, like the starling, but usually remains the whole summer in meadows, and in winter retires to the open grassy woods, having no inclination to rob the orchard or garden ; and, except in winter, is of a shy, timid, and retiring disposition. But one brood is reared in the season. In the North it is a bird of passage, arriving among the first of the spring visitors.