THE PRAIRIE HORNED LARK. 295 
Labrador birds, it may be, are still flocking; Bluebird has not brought the 
official tidings of spring from the Southland; but only let the February sun 
shine a little while and ‘“‘Prairie’s” brave courting song is heard from on high. 
When the frost is out of the ground, altho there may still be ample 
danger of snows, the sturdy pair sink a deep, cup-shaped depression in the 
moist earth and line it plentifully with dried grasses, last year’s thistle down, 
and such. In this latitude the eggs are laid in March or early April, three 
or four in number, heavily and oftenest minutely, dotted with dull olive or 
greenish brown, but sometimes bearing spots as large as those of Shrikes’ 
eggs. The favorite way to locate Horned Larks’ nests in season is to post 
one’s self at the edge of a field and watch the female skulk to her nest. I 
Photo by the Author. 
“AT THE SACRED HOUR OF SUNSET” 
have followed a bird with my glasses half way across a forty acre field until 
she was so far away that I could judge of her whereabouts only by the fact 
that movement had apparently ceased. As I walked straight toward the nest 
the bird would flush at forty or fifty yards. 
A first brood is raised in April and a second in June or July. Accord- 
ing to Prof. Lynds Jones three broods are raised in Iowa, one early in April, 
another early in June, and a third in late July, or August. 
But the chief interest of nesting time centers in the song flight of the 
male. The song itself is perhaps nothing remarkable, a little ditty or suc- 
cession of sprightly syllables which have no considerable resonance or mod- 
ulation, altho they quite defy vocalization; yet such are the circumstances 
attending its delivery that it is set down by every one as “pleasing,” while 
