BIRDS OF KANSAS. 44I 



habit of running and skulking a few yards in advance of you 

 as you walk tlirough the fields, are sufficient to identify him. 

 Not in meadows or orchards, but in high, breezy pasture 

 grounds will you look for him. His song is most noticable af- 

 ter sundown, when other birds are silent; for which reason he 

 has been aptly called the Yesper Sparrow. The farmer, follow- 

 ing his team from the field at dusk, catches his sweetest strain. 

 His song is not so brisk and varied as that of the Song Spar- 

 row, being softer and wilder, sweeter and more plaintive. Add 

 the best parts of the lay of the latter to the sweet vibrating 

 chant of the Wood Sparrow, and you have the evening hymn 

 of the Yesper Bird — the poet of the plain, unadorned pastures. 

 Go to those broad, smooth, uplying fields where the cattle and 

 sheep are grazing, and sit down in the twilight on one of those 

 warm, clean stones, and listen to this song. On every side, near 

 and remote, from out the short grass which the herds are crop- 

 ping, the strain rises. Two or three long, silver notes of peace 

 and rest, ending in some subdued trills and quavers, constitute 

 each separate song. Often you will catch only one or two of 

 the bars, the breeze having blown the minor part away. Such 

 unambitious, quite unconscious melody ! It is one of the most 

 characteristic sounds in nature. The grass, the stones, the stub- 

 ble, the furrow, the quiet herds, and the warm twilight among 

 the hills, are all subtilely expressed in this song; this is what 

 they are at least capable of." 



Their nests are placed on the ground, in open and exposed 

 situations, usually in a cavity or place worked out deep enough 

 to bring the top of the nest on a level with the surface; they 

 are loosely made of grasses, and lined with horse hairs. Eggs 

 four or five, .75x.58; pale greenish white, specked, spotted and 

 blotched with various shades of reddish and purple brown; on 

 some the markings are small, chiefly aggregated around the 

 larger end; in form, oval. 



Genus AMMODRAMUS Swainson. 

 "Bill very long, slender and attenuated, considerably curved toward the tip 

 above. The gonys straight. A decided lobe in middle of cutting edge of upper 

 bill. The legs and toes are very long and reach considerably beyond the tip of 



