BIRDS OF THE ARID PLAIN 87 



song compares favorably with that of the European 

 skylark ; but, loyal and patriotic an American as we 

 are, honesty compels us to concede that our bird's 

 voice is much feebler and less musical than that of his 

 celebrated relative across the sea. It sounds like the 

 unmelodious clicking of pebbles, while the song of the 

 skylark is loud, clear, and ringing. 



Our birds of the plain find insects to their taste in 

 the short grass which carpets the land with greenish or 

 olive gray. The following morning a mother lark was 

 seen gathering insects and holding them in her bill — a 

 sure sign of fledglings in the near neighborhood. I 

 decided to watch her, and, if possible, find her bantlings. 

 It required not a little patience, for she was wary and 

 the sun poured down a flood of almost blistering heat. 

 This way and that she scurried over the ground, now- 

 picking up an insect and adding it to the store already 

 in her bill, and now standing almost erect to eye me 

 narrowly and with some suspicion. At length she 

 seemed to settle down for a moment upon a particular 

 spot, and when I looked again with my glass, her beak 

 was empty. I examined every inch of ground, as I 

 thought, in the neighborhood of the place where she 

 had stopped, but could find neither nest nor nestlings. 



Again I turned my attention to the mother bird, 

 which meanwhile had gathered another bunch of insects 

 and was hopping about with them through the croppy 



