It is on account of this habit of his, always having his song at his tongue's end, that the poets have made the lark the subject of many a moral romance. "His feet are on the earth, while his song is in the sky." "High or low, in joy and pain, warm or cold, wet or dry, sing like the lark." And he is given the credit of "waking up the morning," and also of "tucking in the night," and of "blowing the noon whistle," and all sorts of intermediate duties. He doesn't deserve it all more than other birds, however. But it is the poet who sings as often as the mood takes him. If it be the lark that inspires him at this particular moment, the lark is his theme. Or if it be the raven or the wren or any other winged subject, it is one and the same to the poet. But country people are all poets. In their hearts they have enshrined the meadow-lark, because he is very near them and gives them little cause to despise him. He has no tooth for fruit or grain, unless he happen to stumble on it unawares. He seems never to seek it, like the sparrows. Resident in many places, even when the snow is up to his knees; in the open field, in the margin of woods, where it is cool and grassy; in damp meadows where the insect people have their summer home; and if food be scarce, even in the barn-yard litter, may the meadow-lark be seen. Yes, seen and heard! Very often he is heard and not seen. And no one need see him to know him. His song is his passport to everybody's heart. "There's the meadow-lark!" exclaims a white-haired man, bent with much listening and many sorrows, leaning on memory and his strong cane for support. And his eye brightens, as no youthful eye can shine, at sound of the familiar melody. "Yes," he says, "that is the meadow-lark. He's somewhere down in the open. I knew him when I was a boy." And the old man, who is a boy again, walks weakly off to the nearest field, bent on flushing the comrade of his childhood. He sits feebly down on a log and rests. It is the same log he climbed when he was a boy. It was not horizontal as long ago as that, but perpendicular, and was green-topped and full of orioles' nests. It lies prone on the ground now, long ago cut straight in two at the base. And it has laid there so long it has grown black and mildewed. On account of this mildew, and the toadstools that have ruffled and fluted and bedecked its softened bark, the insect people have made their home in it. [Illustration: MEADOW LARK.]