Bob THE PRAIRIE HORNED LARK. ae 
for the initiated is possesses a charm which is quite unique. Twidge-widge, 
widgity, widgy-widge, conveys no idea of the tone-quality, indeed, but may 
serve to indicate the proportion and tempo of the common song; while 77zwvidge, 
widgity, eelooy, eelooy, idgity, eelooy, eew, may serve the same purpose for 
the rare ecstasy song. The bird sometimes sings from a fence post, or even 
from a hummock on the ground, but usually the impulse of song takes him 
up into the free air. Here at almost any hour of the day he may be seen 
poising at various heights, like a miniature hawk, and sending down tender 
words of greeting and cheer to the little wife who broods below. 
It is, however, at the sacred hour of sunset that the soul of the heavenly 
singer takes wing for its ethereal abode. The sun is just sinking; the faithful 
spouse has settled herself to her gentle task for the night; and the bird-man 
has lain down in the shadow of the fence to gaze at the sky. The bird gives 
himself to the buoyant influences of the trembling air and mounts aloft by 
easy gradations. As he rises he swings round in a wide, loose circle, singing 
softly the while. At the end of every little height he pauses and hovers and 
sends down the full voiced song. Up and up he goes, the song becoming 
tenderer, sweeter, more refined and subtly suggestive of all a bird may seek in 
the lofty blue. As he fades from the unaided sight I train my glasses on 
him and still witness the heavenward spirals. I lower the glasses. Ah! I 
have lost him now! Still there float down to us, the enraptured wife and 
me, those most ethereal strains, sublimated past all taint of earth, beatific, 
elysian. Ah! surely, we have lost him! He has gone to join the angels. 
“Chirriquita, on the nest, we have lost him.” “Never fear,’ she answers; 
“Hark!” Stronger grows the dainty music once again. Stronger! Stronger! 
Dropping out of the boundless darkening blue, still by easy flights, a song for 
every step of Jacob’s ladder, our messenger is coming down. But the ladder 
does not rest on earth. When about two hundred feet high the singer sud- 
denly folds his wings and drops like a plummet to the ground. Within the 
last dozen feet he checks himself and lights gracefully near his nest. The bird- 
man steals softly away to dream of love and God, and to waken on the mor- 
row of earth, refreshed. 
It is most gratifying to note that the Horned Larks of our state are in- 
creasing. Perhaps some oi the apparent increase is due to the fact of better 
acquaintance and closer methods of observation; but more is doubtless due to 
the continued denudation of timber and the consequent restoration of land to 
the prairie conditions suitable for this plains-loving bird. It is suggestive, in 
view of this suspected increase, that Nuttall, writing in 1832, said of this 
whole group (QO. alpestris and subspecies not yet elaborated), “As yet the 
nest of this wandering species is unknown, and must probably be sought for 
