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The gray squirrel is peculiarly an American product, and might serve very well as a national emblem. The Old World can beat us on rats and mice, but we are far ahead on squirrels, having five or six species to Europe’s one.

THE SKYLARK ON THE HUDSON

My note-book of the past season is enriched with the unusual incident of an English skylark in full song above an Esopus meadow. I was poking about a marshy place in a low field one morning in early May, when, through the maze of bird-voices,–laughter of robins, call of meadowlarks, song of bobolinks, ditty of sparrows, whistle of orioles, twitter of swallows,–with which the air was filled, my ear suddenly caught an unfamiliar strain. I paused to listen: can it be possible, I thought, that I hear a lark, or am I dreaming? The song came from the air, above a wide, low meadow many hundred yards away. Withdrawing a few paces to a more elevated position, I bent my eye and ear eagerly in that direction. Yes, that unstinted, jubilant, skyward, multitudinous song can be none other than the lark’s! Any of our native songsters would have ceased while I was listening. Presently I was fortunate enough to catch sight of the bird. He had reached his climax in the sky, and was hanging with quivering wings beneath a small white cloud, against which his form was clearly revealed. I had seen and heard the lark in England, else I should still have been in doubt about the identity of this singer. While I was climbing a fence I was obliged to take my eye from the bird, and when I looked again the song had ceased and the lark had gone. I was soon in the meadow above which I had heard him, and the first bird I flushed was the lark.

How strange he looked to my eye (I use the masculine gender because it was a male bird, but an Irishman laboring in the field, to whom I related my discovery, spoke touchingly of the bird as “she,” and I notice that the old poets do the same); his long, sharp wings, and something in his manner of flight suggested a shore-bird. I followed him about the meadow and got several snatches of song out of him, but not again the soaring, skyward flight and copious musical shower. By appearing to pass by, I several times got within a few yards of him; as I drew near he would squat in the stubble, and then suddenly start up, and, when fairly launched, sing briefly till he alighted again fifteen or twenty rods away. I came twice the next day and twice the next, and each time found the lark in the meadow or heard his song from the air or the sky. What was especially interesting was that the lark had “singled out with affection” one of our native birds, and the one that most resembled its kind, namely, the vesper sparrow, or grass finch. To this bird I saw him paying his addresses with the greatest assiduity. He would follow it about and hover above it, and by many gentle indirections seek to approach it. But the sparrow was shy, and evidently did not know what to make of her distinguished foreign lover. It would sometimes take refuge in a bush, when the lark, not being a percher, would alight upon the ground beneath it. This sparrow looks enough like the lark to be a near relation. Its color is precisely the same, and it has the distinguishing mark of the two lateral white quills in its tail. It has the same habit of skulking in the stubble or the grass as you approach; it is exclusively a field-bird, and certain of its notes might have been copied from the lark’s song. In size it is about a third smaller, and this is the most marked difference between them. With the nobler bipeds, this would not have been any obstacle to the union, and in this case the lark was evidently quite ready to ignore the difference, but the sparrow persisted in saying him nay. It was doubtless this obstinacy on her part that drove the lark away, for, on the fifth day, I could not find him, and have never seen nor heard him since. I hope he found a mate somewhere, but it is quite improbable. The bird had, most likely, escaped from a cage, or, maybe, it was a survivor of a number liberated some years ago on Long Island. There is no reason why I the lark should not thrive in this country as well as in Europe, and, if a few hundred were liberated in any of our fields in April or May, I have little doubt they would soon become established. And what an acquisition it would be! As a songster, the lark is deserving of all the praise that has been bestowed upon him. He would not add so much to the harmony or melody of our bird-choir as he would add to its blithesomeness, joyousness, and power. His voice is the jocund and inspiring voice of a spring morning. It is like a ceaseless and hilarious clapping of hands. I was much interested in an account a friend gave me of the first skylark he heard while abroad. He had been so full of the sights and wonders of the Old World that he had quite forgotten the larks, when one day, as he was walking somewhere near the sea, a brown bird started up in front of him, and mounting upward began to sing. It drew his attention, and as the bird went skyward, pouring out his rapid and jubilant notes, like bees from a hive in swarming-time, the truth suddenly flashed upon the observer.