330 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



sometimes in the latter part of April, and remaining until the 

 latter part of September. It is one of the most characteristic 

 birds of the country in summer, where the male may be heard at 

 intervals throughout the day, even during the hottest, most sul- 

 try days of summer, perched upon a weed, a fencepost, or the top- 

 most branch of a hedge, earnestly uttering a rather loud and 

 scarcely musical chip-chip-chee, chee, chee. 



This species has changed its range somewhat during re(;ent 

 years. It was formerh^ common along the Atlantic coast, but 

 within the last thirty or forty years has become practically extinct 

 east of the Alleghanies (Auk, xxi, 3, 1904). Its numbers appear 

 to have changed little in Iowa since the settlement of the state. 

 In 1868 J. A. Allen gave it as one of the most abundant birds in 

 eastern Iowa, "eminently a prairie species, and one of the few 

 inhabitants of the wide open stretches" (Mem. Bost. Soc, i, 

 1868, p. 446). Many observers give the species as building its 

 nest on the ground, but of the dozens of nests which I have 

 examined none were directly on the ground; a few were placed 

 in clumps of tall grass a few inches above the ground, several in 

 Canada thistles, and the majority in small bushes and low trees, 

 rose-bushes, willows, wild crab, scrub-oak, wild cherry, apple 

 trees, etc., from a few inches to three and one-half feet above the 

 ground. July 11-12, 1902, found four nests in a young orchard, 

 all in small apple trees two or three feet up, surrounded by tall 

 weeds and containing eggs and young, newly-hatched young and 

 fledged young ; July 9, 1894, found four nests in small bushes: 

 August 19, 1893, found a nest containing two eggs and two young 

 birds; all in Winnebago county. In July, 1905, I found''a num- 

 ber of nests in a large weed patch in Johnson county. The eggs 

 are four or five in number and pale blue in color, very closely re- 

 sembling eggs of the Bluebird. 



Genus Calamospiza Bonaparte. 

 267. (605). Calamospiza melayicorys Stejn. I^ark Bunting. 



The Lark Bunting or " White- winged Blackbird" is a bird of 

 the western plains and rarely strays east to Iowa. Audubon 

 observed the species at Blackbird's Hill, on the Missouri, May 13, 

 1843, saying: "During the wood-cutting. Bell walked to the 

 top of the hill and shot two Lark Buntings and a Lincoln's 



