Rural School Leaflet. - 1055 



THE PRAIRIE HORNED LARK 



Arthur A. Allen 



•,^ - j^^,,^ THE February sun is just dropping behind the 



"^'^^^^j '~^l^f^~^ thawing hills. Through the furrows and along the 



' ■•■X-'tttJ road muddy rivulets are fast eating away the last 



;/ if of the snowdrifts. So bright and warm has been 



/ the day that in spite of the snow and ice the air 



^ feels like spring. We know that there is still snow 



to come, that snowdrifts may yet cover the fences; but the ruddy 



glow of the western horizon, the deep blue of the sky overhead 



and the gentle south breeze, put springtime into our hearts. And, as if 



to make the deception more complete, and to make us believe that 



spring has really come, there bursts from somewhere overhead the 



early spring song of the lark. It is not the beautiful song of the European 



Skylark we read of in books, nor the sweet whistle of the Meadow Lark, 



that we hear, but the simple, plaintive song of our own good Prairie 



Horned Lark. It is not an elaborate song, we can scarcely call it musical, 



but oh what a breath of spring it brings! 



Straining our eyes we see the bird. He is mounting into the heavens 

 as though on an immense spiral staircase. Up and up he goes, occasion- 

 ally giving his call note or poising long enough to pour forth his simple 

 song; up and up, until we can scarcely follow with our eyes. At last, 

 as if he had reached the top of the stairway and is about to disappear 

 into space, he hovers for a moment, bursts into song and then begins 

 to descend. Fluttering and singing all the while, he floats, like a leaf, 

 downward toward the earth. Suddenly, however, he closes his wings 

 and the next moment he is dropping like a stone. Down, down he 

 comes until we fear that he will dash his little body to pieces on the 

 hard earth; down, down, until not ten feet from the ground, he opens 

 his wings and flutters to earth, alighting in safety. We know that the 

 courtship of the Larks has begun. 



Who is there that does not know the Horned Lark? When the 

 weather is mild he stays with us all winter in large flocks, feeding like 

 the Snowflakes in the open fields. Other years, when the snows are 

 deep and the mercury rests way down in the bulb for long stretches 

 at a time, we miss him through the early part of the winter. Not until 

 the last of February do we see him, when he comes back to us from the 

 south, the earliest of the migrants, the first harbinger of spring. Long 

 before the robins or bluebirds have arrived we hear the plaintive ''tseeU 



