25 

 BREEDING OF THE HORNED LARK IN OHIO. 



BY ERNEST W. VICKEKS. 



A change of a few miles sometimes giv^es marked 

 changes in the plants and animals as one or the other 

 life zone predominates or emphasize itself Thus in 

 two localities in which I have lived near Cleveland and 

 at Ellsworth, can I note the variations, the former 

 being in the Carolinian the latter in the Boreal zone 

 with the Alleghenian coloring. Near Cleveland I found 

 the blue-tailed lizard (Eumeces quinquelineatus), Spon- 

 gilla fragilis, the Papaw with its attendant butterfly 

 Papilio ajax— with other plants of the Carolinian Zone, 

 while in Ellsworth, though sixty miles farther south, 

 I do not find these southern species at all, but on the 

 other hand, find them replaced by the Trailing Arbutus 

 and other more northern and Boreal species. 



A species once thought to breed far enough north 

 to miss our state, is the Horned-lark — I am not con- 

 cerned about the species — which I have, for some years, 

 observed common all through the \^ear, at several 

 points. What little I have to offer is doubtless as 

 much as is yet known concerning its distribution in 

 Ohio. It was recorded as breeding near Cleveland, in 

 Volume IV of the Geol. Survey of Ohio. In early April, 

 1895, the writer found a nest containing young, just 

 hatched, in Ellsworth, Mahoning Co. This carries the 

 species sixty miles farther into the state, while my 

 friend, R. E.Galbreath, observed it in mid-summer, near 

 New Lisbon, Columbiana Co., which carries it 12 miles 

 farther south. How far it extends, only observation 

 can show. In this, as in the distribution of an}^ species 

 only a universal effort of observation — when such a 

 thing is possible, will give us any trust-worthy results, 

 results which will be ultimate. An account of the nest, 

 habits, fledging of young, &c., of the pair which the 

 writer observed, will be found in "The Oologist " for 

 June, 1895. 



