![\"Western](\"https:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5228\/5576306606_4bd7d424f1_o.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOn June 22, 1805, Meriwether Lewis wrote in his journal<\/a> that<\/p>\n \u00a0there is a kind of larke here that much resembles the bird called the oldfield lark with a yellow brest and a black spot on the croop.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Lewis and the expedition’s crew knew the\u00a0eastern meadowlark, <\/strong>“the oldfield lark,” and he observed that these western birds uttered a “note [that] differs considerably” from that familiar bird from back home. But<\/p>\n in size, action, and colours there is no perceptable difference; or at least none that strikes my eye.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And that was that. Lewis and Clark had in fact discovered a new species, the\u00a0western meadowlark,\u00a0<\/strong>but apparently thinking it just a variant of the well-known eastern bird, they preserved no specimens and prepared no formal description.<\/p>\n What happened next<\/a> is well known. In May 1843<\/a>, John G. Bell, the taxidermist on Audubon’s Missouri River journey, became aware of some<\/p>\n curious notes, without which [the meadowlarks above Fort Croghan, Dakota] in all probability … would have been mistaken for our common species.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n On collecting a series of these “quite abundant” birds and comparing them to New York skins of the eastern meadowlark<\/strong>, Audubon — in contrast to Lewis, four decades earlier — determined that<\/p>\n the differences are quite sufficient to warrant me to describe the [western birds] as a new and hitherto undescribed species,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n which he named the Missouri meadow-lark<\/strong>,\u00a0Sturnella neglecta.<\/em><\/p>\n That epithet,\u00a0neglecta<\/em>, is sometimes taken as another in Audubon’s collection of snide sideswipes at his colleagues and predecessors, but in this case, it is simply a statement of fact. And Audubon frankly includes himself<\/a> among those naturalists who had overlooked the difference.<\/p>\n When I first saw them, they were among a number of Yellow-headed Troupials [yellow-headed blackbirds], and their notes so much resembled the cries of these birds, that I took them for the notes of the Troupial, and paid no farther attention to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Today is the day to be grateful that he and his colleagues eventually did pay attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, if it isn’t, it should be. On June 22, 1805, Meriwether Lewis wrote in his journal that \u00a0there is a kind of larke here that much resembles the bird called the oldfield lark with a yellow brest and a black spot on the croop. Lewis and the expedition’s crew knew the\u00a0eastern meadowlark, “the oldfield … <\/p>\n![\"Aud,](\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Screenshot-2014-06-22-12.37.56.png\")
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