THE HORNED LARK 



By EDWARD HOWE FORBUSH 



%^t jRattonal Si00omtion of Siutmhon ^ocittitfi 



EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 53 



It is November. On Martha's Vineyard, a little island south of Cape Cod, 

 the boiling surf pounds and roars along the lonely shore, shifting the sands 

 upon the bars and rattling the cobbles upon the stony beaches; Surf Ducks 

 dive and play amid the white capped seas, while the Atlantic stretches away 

 in the dim distance to the home of the east wind and the storm. 



Inland, among shrubby plains and rolling hills, nestles an isolated farm. 

 Here, in a weedy field, sheltered somewhat from the searching winds of the 

 Atlantic, a flock of little brown birds creep in and out among the stubble. 

 They have come from their summer home, in bleak and barren Labrador, 

 to their harvest home in this sea-girt isle. They are Eastern Homed Larks, 

 the type of the species. 



It is April. The setting sun lies warm over the wide prairie fields of Min- 

 nesota, and the light, free south wind gently breathes the breath of life over 

 an eager land. A little bird sits on her sunken nest on the prairie sod, watching 

 her mate as he springs aloft and gives himself to the buoyant currents of the 

 air. He swings in loose circuits, and zigzags back and forth, singing, gently 

 at first, then, fluttering upward, rises by stages, taking each upward step at an 

 angle of about forty-five degrees, sailing, gyrating, mounting higher and still 

 higher, pouring forth his whole soul in an ecstasy of song. Up and up he goes, 

 swinging in spirals, pausing and fluttering at one height after another to send 

 back to earth his finest music; and so he soars and sings until he fades from 

 view in the clear, blue canopy of heaven, and the song is wafted down sweeter 

 and fainter until, like the Skylark, he sings at "heaven's gate." Then, as the 

 full flood of his ecstasy begins to ebb, and his strength wanes, he sinks slowly 

 down; the far-away song swells on the listening ear, and, still fluttering and 

 singing, he comes again into view. Swinging in wide aerial circuits, he drops 

 by slow stages, until at last his hymn is ended and, closing his wings to his 

 sides, he drops like a meteor from heaven, until near the earth, when he spreads 

 his wings, checking his headlong rush, turns and swings along the sod until 

 his toes touch the grass tops as lightly as the summer wind; and he comes to 

 earth again near the little nest, the center of all his hopes. 



Such is the song flight of the Prairie Horned Lark— a wonderful perform- 

 ance. The last stanza of Wordsworth's 'Ode to the Skylark' might well be 

 applied to his American cousin: 



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