12 



THE HORNED LARK. 



female Horned Lark flew out from under the snow near my 

 feet. Thrusting my finger carefully through the cold cov- 

 ering, I touched the eggs, still warm; and picking out care- 

 fully the snow which had fallen into the nest as the bird 

 left it, I found four eggs about half incubated. Who would 

 not be impressed with the fidelity of this bird to her charge, 

 thus allowing herself to be snowed over, and continuing to 

 sit, as she no doubt would have done, till she thawed out 

 again ? 



The second set of eggs is laid in June. The full fledged 

 young are of a mottled gray color, somewhat like the first 

 plumage of young Screech Owls. The nest is made of 

 stubble, rootlets, and dried grasses, sometimes having a little 

 wool or horse-hair in the lining. It is well sunken into the 

 ground, and is generally a frail, loose and inartistic struct- 

 ure. The eggs, commonly four, about .88 x .62, are gray- 

 ish-white, thickly speckled all over with greenish-brown, 

 having a similar under-marking of pale lilac or purplish- 

 brown. They cannot be easily mistaken for any other eggs 

 in this locality. 



Mr. James Booth, of Drummondville, Ontario, for over 

 thirty years a distinguished taxidermist for Niagara Falls, 

 Buffalo, and the region round about, says that the Horned 

 Larks did not breed here formerly; that this southern ex- 

 tension of their breeding habitat is a recent and noticeable 

 change. With this corresponds the testimony of Mr. T. 

 Mcllwraith, of Hamilton, Ont. 



Audubon found the nests of this species common on the 

 moss-clad coasts of Labrador. Mr. James Fortiscue, an 

 excellent correspondent of mine, who is chief factor of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company at York Factory, reports it as a 

 summer resident about Hudson's Bay, building its nest " in 

 grass along the coast." 



