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Birds and Nature, Vol. XI, No 5, May 1902

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<h2 id="c6">MISSOURI SKYLARK. (Anthus spragueii.)</h2> <div class="verse"> “What thou art we know not What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.” —Shelley. </div> When the umber skylark is struck into glory of plume and of song by the rising sun, we can conceive that the song is indeed “the nearest approach, in animal nature, to the ringing of the hydrogen bells in the physics of light,” and that when “the music soars within the little lark and the lark soars,” he is almost an involuntary agent, the song, like the summer, owing its creation, as George MacDonald tells, to <div class="verse"> “The sun that rises early, Shining, shining all day rarely; Drawing up the larks to meet him, Earth’s bird-angels, wild to greet him.” </div> Although the skylark, more than any other of the aerial tribes, “holds the middle rank ’twixt heaven and earth, on the last verge of mortal being stand,” the fate of the Missouri skylark is more unhappy than that of a prophet, for, being so little known in comparison with his deserts, he is almost without honor in his own country or any other. Yet it was so long ago as May 19, 1843, that Audubon, near the headwaters of the Missouri, celebrated in his journal the glad tidings of his discovery: “Harris and Bell have returned, and, to my delight and utter astonishment, have brought two new birds, one a lark, small and beautiful.” And again, on June 22, he writes: “The little new lark, that I have named for Sprague, has almost all the habits of the skylark of Europe. Whilst looking anxiously for it on the ground, where we supposed it to be singing, we discovered it to be high over our heads, and that sometimes it went too high for us to see at all. When this species start from the ground they fly in succession of undulations, which renders aim at them quite difficult. After this, and in the same manner, they elevate themselves to some considerable height, as if about to sing, and presently pitch toward the ground, where they run prettily, and at times stand still and quite erect for a few minutes.” On June 24 he continues: “This afternoon I thought would be a fair opportunity to examine the manners of Sprague’s lark on the wing. The male rises, by constant undulations, to a great height, say one hundred yards or more; and, whilst singing its sweetest sounding notes, beats its wings, poised in the air like a hawk, without rising at this time, after which, and after each burst of singing, it sails in divers directions, forming three-quarters of a circle or thereabouts, then rises again, and again sings. The intervals between the singing are longer than those the song occupies (the latter about fifteen to twenty minutes), and at times the bird remains so long in the air as to render it quite fatiguing to follow it with the eye. Sprague thought one he watched yesterday remained in the air about an hour. Bell and Harris watched one for more than half an hour, and this afternoon I gazed upon one, whilst Bell timed it, for thirty-six minutes.” In November, 1873, Dr. Coues discovered this pipit in considerable numbers, and continues Audubon’s enthusiastic description: The ordinary straightforward flight of the bird is performed with a regular rising and falling like that of the titlark; but its course, when startled from the ground, is exceedingly rapid and wayward. At such times, after the first alarm, they are wont to hover around in a desultory manner for a considerable time and then pitch suddenly down to the ground, often near where they rose. Under these circumstances they have a lisping, querulous note. But these common traits have nothing to do with the wonderful soaring action and the inimitable, matchless song of the birds during the 203 breeding season. It is no wonder Audubon grew enthusiastic in describing it. “Rising from the nest or from its grassy bed, this plain-looking little bird, clad in the simplest colors, and making but a speck in the boundless expanse, mounts straight up on tremulous wings, until lost to view in the blue ether, and then sends back to earth a song of gladness that seems to come from the sky itself, to cheer the weary, give hope to the disheartened, and turn the most indifferent, for the moment at least, from sordid thoughts. No other bird music heard in our land compares with the wonderful strains of this songster; there is something not of earth in the melody, coming from above, yet from no visible source. The notes are simply indescribable; but once heard they can never be forgotten. Their volume and penetration are truly wonderful. They are neither loud nor strong, yet the whole air seems filled with the tender strains and the delightful melody continues long unbroken. The song is only heard for a brief period in the summer, ceasing when the inspiration of the love season is over, and it is only uttered when the birds are soaring.” Baird, Brewer and Ridgway tell that Captain Blackiston found this skylark common on the prairies of the Saskatchewan, and described the song as consisting of a quick succession of notes, in a descending scale, each note being lower than the preceding. The bird then descends to the ground with great rapidity, almost like a stone, and somewhat in the manner of a hawk sweeping on its prey. He also saw these birds in northern Minnesota. Some one says that the larks, those creatures of “light and air and motion, whose nest is in the stubble and whose tryst is in the cloud,” are well-known as the symbol of poets and victim of epicures, and Burroughs, to whom they are a symbol, says: “Its type is the grass where the bird makes its home, abounding, multitudinous, the notes nearly all alike and in the same key, but rapid, swarming, prodigal, showering down as thick and fast as drops of rain in a summer shower.” This of the skylark of Europe. But he adds: “On the Great Plains of the West there is a bird whose song resembles the lark’s quite closely, and it is said to be not at all inferior—the Missouri Skylark, an excelsior songster, which from far up in the transparent blue rains down its notes for many minutes together. It is no doubt destined to figure in the future poetical literature of the West.” Yet all that has been written of the “Star of music in a fiery cloud” by Burroughs and by Wadsworth, Shelley and the rest, might properly have been indited to the “Musical Cherub” of the Big Muddy Valley, when, climbing, “shrill with ecstacy, the trembling air,” he “calls up the tuneful nations,” and the same celestial pilgrim might have appeared to Eric MacKay: <div class="verse"> “In the light of the day, Like a soul on its way To the gardens of God, it was loosed from the earth; And the song that it sang was a pæan of mirth For the raptures of birth.” Juliette A. Owen. </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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