38 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



The Scythian 



On the wide steppe, unharnessing 

 His wheel'd house at noon. 



He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal 

 Mares' milk, and bread 

 Baked on the embers ; all around 

 The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch . . . 

 . . . ; before him, for long miles, 

 Alive with bright green lizards 

 And the springing bustard fowl, 

 The track, a straight black line, 

 Furrows the rich soil ; here and there 

 Clusters of lonely mounds 

 Topp'd with rough hewn, 

 Gray, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer 

 The sunny waste. 



In the spring mornings the rider on the plains will hear bird songs 

 unknown in the East. The Missouri skylark sings while soaring above 

 the great plateaus so high in the air that it is impossible to see the bird ; 

 and this habit of singing while soaring it shares with some sparrow-like 

 birds that are often found in company with it. The white-shouldered 

 lark-bunting, in its livery of black, has rich, full notes, and as it sings on 

 the wing it reminds one of the bobolink ; and the sweet-voiced lark-finch 

 also utters its song in the air. These birds, and most of the sparrows of 

 the plains, are characteristic of this region. 



But many of our birds, especially those found in the wooded river bot- 

 toms, answer to those of the East ; only almost each one has some marked 

 point of difference from its Eastern representative. The bluebird out 

 West is very much of a blue bird indeed, for it has no " earth tinge " on 

 its breast at all ; while the indigo-bird, on the contrary, has gained the 

 ruddy markings that the other has lost. The flicker has the shafts of its 

 wing and tail quills colored orange instead of yellow. The towhee has 

 lost all title to its name, for its only cry is a mew like that of a cat-bird ; 

 while, most wonderful of all, the meadow-lark has found a rich, strong 

 voice, and is one of the sweetest and most incessant singers we have. 



Throughout June the thickets and groves about the ranch house are 

 loud with bird music from before dawn till long after sunrise. The 

 thrashers have sung all the night through from among the thorn-bushes 

 if there has been a moon, or even if there has been bright starlight ; and 

 before the first glimmer of gray the bell-like, silvery songs of the shy 

 woodland thrushes chime in; while meadow-lark, robin, bluebird, and 

 song sparrow, together with many rarer singers, like the grosbeak, join in 



