SOME WESTERN HORIZONS. NO. 



The last stop on the overland trip was made at Julesburg, a prairie 

 hamlet in the north-eastern corner of Colorado. Here the Platte River 

 struggles with its shifting sands, and low bluffs follow the general trend 

 of its course on either side. The rest is just prairie and wind. I mention 

 the wind because on the day of our visit there was about twice as much 

 of it as there was of prairie and it had more to do with ornithological 

 operations. Altho it was the 17th of May, the wind was so strong and 

 so searching that I frequently lay down on the ground to rest and get 

 warm. 



The willow-clad islands of the Platte afforded some protection for the 

 birds, and it was here that most of them were found. These islands are 

 a characteristic feature for many miles. They consist of a core or 

 raised portion covered with thick, stunted scrubbery, such as rose brier 

 and Labrador tea, with a willow fringe surrounding the whole. Between 

 these islands the river flows or not according to its high pleasure and the 

 season of the year. From the midst of one of these patches I put up 

 an American Bittern from a nest containing two eggs. The nest con- 

 sisted merely of a trifling amount of grass scratched together. 



The one impressive feature of this day's experience of bird life was 

 found in the Lark Bunting He was everywhere, and always a pleasant 

 sight. He is made for the prairie, and it makes no difference to him if 

 it is a wind-swept prairie. Ever and anon he launches into the wind 

 and flutters up some ten or twenty feet/ singing the while, then he makes 

 a parachute of his wings, bat fashion, or like a V, and settles to the 

 ground again, still singing. The song is not loud but is a pleasing 

 repetition of several very different phrases. By phrases I mean a short 

 succession of notes of one quality. Thus one phrase will consist of four 

 similar double notes, "IVe'o, zceo, zi'e'o, tc^'o," and another, perhaps 

 immediately succeeding, will be a trill like that of the Grasshopper 

 Sparrow. Evidently the buntings were not nesting yet as there were ten 

 males to be seen to one female. Besides, several mixed flocks of forty 

 or tifty birds were seen, and these were manifestly late arrivals. 



The following horizon of twenty-nine species was observed between 

 4:30 P. M., May 16 and 4:30 p. m., May 17. 



