Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/179

 sister have given a sudden joy to the wide spaces that was not there before and I welcome them as near relatives of the utricularias.

Over them all on the day that spring came, over the sandy levels, the round-eyed, flower-bedecked pools, rang the tinkling, joyous songs of I do not know how many million meadow larks. A day or two before I had seen but a scattering one or two and not one had sung for me. On that day they appeared everywhere, not in flocks like the robins and blackbirds, but singly and by twos and threes well distributed over all the landscape. They sing from lowly stations, a short, dead stub in the lonely reaches, a fence post near the farm, or the low ridgepole of the farmer's shack. Nothing could be more springlike than their music and they are the first Northern birds that I have found singing freely so far South. The robins and the redwings are songless, the bluebird carols shyly as he flies but so gently that he is rarely heard. The crow blackbird works hard but it is hardly a song that he produces, and so the mellow tinkle of these myriads of meadow larks is a delight to the Northern ear.

It is a joy also to see one of them after his song flutter forth from his perch, spread his wings in mid-flight and sail sweetly down, lighting in among the wild grasses as if he loved them. The meadow lark's breast wears a rich yellow that