100 



THEOSPKEY 



post in a barbed-wire fence, I drojjped on liands 

 and Icnees and stole toward it witli tlie bellows 

 of a camera pulled out to the 10-feet mark on 

 the graduated scale. On being- approached 

 within forty feet, the bird flitted ahead, alight- 

 ing' as before some rods further on. Following- 

 carefully and -with painful slowness, I reached 

 a point within twenty-five feet, when it flew 

 ahead as before. This time it suffered ap- 

 proach within jjerhaps twenty feet. Then fol- 

 lowed a weai-y succession of creeping ap- 

 proaches on my part and retreats on the ])art of 

 the bird, until full a mile of fence had been fol- 

 lowed up before the necessary approach within 

 ten feet was achieved. As the camera "was 

 snapped when held close to the grovmd, and 

 while pointed upwa7-d at a moderate angle, the 

 effect of the fence-post in the picture is some- 

 what that of a telegraph pole. 



CLAY-COLORED SPARROW. 



A shoemaker came to luy ho\ise in breathless 

 haste one day last fall to announce the cap- 

 ture of two ""Graybirds." Jt seems that the 

 sjjarrows, while apparently placing "tag" on 

 their way through town, had darted in the 

 open door of the shop, and then the proprietor 

 hastily closed it. Capturing the ijirds in hand, 

 they were placed together upon a box, and 

 with a thread wound round a leg- of each and 

 fastened to lacks driven into the wood, their 

 portraits were obtained. 



.\dult Western Niglit H.iwk, frum life. 



Nest atul h.ii 



PRAIRIE HORNED LARK. 



[f the nest sitxiation alone were taken into 

 i-imsideration, the bird responsible for the nest 

 and eggs here shown might fitly be called 

 Desert Horned Lark, the location being in the 

 midst of a desolate alkali waste formed by the 

 drying' up of an arm of Devil's Lake. But. per- 

 liaps. the books are right; all the jierplexing 

 forms of Otocorys alpestris are valid, and we 

 have in this region as a summer resident only 

 the subspecies praticola. I wonder, however, 

 if there is in the United States a single man 

 siifficiently skilled to identify, just exactly as 

 the A. O. U. Committee would do it, a dozen 

 different specimens of the Shore Lark, taken at 

 rnuddui througluuit tlie country. 



BAIRD'S SPARROW. 



It has been observed that this Sparrow is 

 very local. I know two strips of prairie where 

 I'asserculus bairdi may always be found in 

 ])rofusion during the summer, while in con- 

 tiguous territory exactly similar in chai'aeter 

 and vegetation the bird is almost never ob- 

 served . 



In my judgment one familiar with this 

 species should never find it necessary to shoot 

 a ])arent for the purpose of identifying the 

 nest. The male is in such close and constant 

 attendance, and his song — aptly described by 

 Dr. Cones in the Key — is so oft-re])eated and 

 so absolutely distinctive, that the evidence of- 

 fered by the female and the nest and eggs 

 themselves is simply cumulative. 



No one needs the camera that will reproduce 

 in natural colors more than the student of 

 l).rd life. These eggs represented here so so- 

 berly were, in fact, a beautiful crystal-white. 

 \vith rich, bold spotting and blotching of 

 bright, reddish-brown. They are now in the 

 collection of Thos. H. Jackson. 



