20 6 THE PRAIRIE HORNED LARK. 



for the initiated is possesses a charm which is quite unique. Tividgc-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 Twidge, 

 ividgity, eelooy, eelooy, idgity, eelooy, eeiv, 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 of 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 (O. alpestris and subspecies not yet elaborated), "As yet the 

 nest of this wandering species is unknown, and must probably be sought for 



