The Prairie Horned Lark 



^ 



BY ROBERT W. HEGNER 



With iiliotographs from nature by the author 



AT intervals throughout the winter, but more often after the 

 first of February, flocks of hardy little brown birds may 

 be seen about Decorah, la., wandering from place to place 

 in search of food. They are the Prairie Horned Larks, 

 harbingers of approaching spring. Some weeks later, when 

 the snow has melted, they seek their favorite haunts in 

 the pasture lands, select a slight elevation from the sur- 

 rounding surface, and proceed to build their nests. They 

 first dig a hole three inches wide and three inches deep 

 in the softened ground, and then line it on the bottom and sides 

 to the depth of an inch with dry grasses, making a warm nest, level 

 with the surface. I accidentally discovered the first one this season 

 on April g. It was nicely lined with vegetable down in addition to 

 the usual lining of dry grasses, and was finished ready for the eggs. 

 I returned in a week, but, as the mother bird was not at home, had 

 to content myself with a photograph of the three finely spotted eggs 

 which it then contained. Some children who observed my move- 

 ments may be held responsible for the destruction of the nest, as 



• . NEST AND EGGS OF HORNED LARK 



two days later I could find nothing but the hole from which it had 

 been torn. After a short search another Lark flushed from a nest 

 of three eggs almost identical with the first and about 300 yards 

 from it. Unless incubation is far advanced they seldom flush from 



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