rSSS-] Seton on Manitoban Birds. 269 



A number of the specimens taken were rather larger than the 

 measurements commonly given. The gizzards generally con- 

 tained hay seeds and small insects, but a large, green caterpillar 

 was found in one of them. 



The latest record I have is September 23. Shortly after this 

 they must have flown southward. 



Another interesting resident of the northern prairies is the 

 Missouri Skylark {Neocorys spragtiei) . It is one of the com- 

 monest of prairie birds in Western Manitoba; its loud ventrilo- 

 quial voice is heard from the clouds on all hands when it is in 

 full song. It commonly arrives on the Big Plain about the 

 3d of May, and by the 6th or 7th is rested and singing. In 

 order to give a better idea of the numbers of this species, I 

 counted those that I passed beneath in a three-mile walk across 

 the prairie on the 10th of May ; altogether there were twelve, 

 trilling their silvery notes in the bosom of the clouds. 



This song was for long a riddle past my solving. I felt 

 sure of its being the utterance of some bird on the prairie, but 

 where I could not tell nor trace ; wherever I went, it seemed to 

 be just a little further ahead, or to one side or another, or sud- 

 denly behind. Throughout the whole season of 1882 I was thus 

 duped, and it was by chance that at last I found the singer to be 

 away up in the sky, but so high that on a bright day it is im- 

 possible to follow with the eye the tiny speck whose music is 

 shaking the air for thousands of feet around. The song is sweet 

 and tar- reaching, and Dr. Cones gives a most enthusiastic de- 

 scription of its moving power and melody, yet, though I am 

 readily influenced by bird music, I never found this singer im- 

 press me with the love and reverence invariably inspired by such 

 as the Veery utters, a bird whose notes resemble these as nearly 

 as possible. 



When the Skylark feels the impulse to sing, he rises from the 

 bare prairie ridge with a peculiar bounding flight, like that of 

 the Pipit; up. in silence, higher and higher he goes, up, up, 

 one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred feet; 

 then, feeling his spirits correspondingly elevated, he spreads his 

 wings and tail and utters his loud song, like tsing-tsing* 

 tsingle-ingle ingleinglcing, the single vibratory note uttered 

 faster and faster till the last ones are all fused. While this is 

 being sung the bird is floating downwards, and as soon as it 



