10 THE HORNED LARK. 



THE HORNED LARK. 



In the dead calm every object was motionless. Perfect 

 stillness reigned. The slightest sound was awakening. 

 What could be more pleasing to the lover of nature at such 

 a time than the graceful flight and the musical notes of 

 birds? Ever and anon, small, loose flocks of Horned Larks 

 (Ercmophila alpcstris] appeared, alighting in the fields and 

 along the highway; and they seemed as social and happy as 

 so many Frenchmen, as they flew, and ran, and squatted, 

 and hopped, vying with each other in their soft conversa- 

 tional tsccp, tseepes. 



This is one of the most characteristic birds of Western 

 New York. In Orleans County, and westward, throughout 

 the year, unless it be in December, there is none which one 

 is more liable to meet. Though in much smaller flocks, it 

 may as frequently appear in the snow-storm as the Snow 

 Bunting, and is much more common in the finer weather of 

 midwinter than the Goldfinch or the Lesser Redpoll. From 

 the frozen fields or the frost-clod fence it greets us with its 

 song already in early February, several weeks before we 

 hear the soft warble of the Bluebird, or the resonant notes 

 of the Song Sparrow, and so gives us the first bird-song of 

 the year. When the earth is soaked and the air is chilled from 

 the thaws of spring, it is as merry and chipper and full of 

 song as ever. It is amidst the merry throngs of May, trav- 

 erses the heated dust of the highway in July and August, 

 and in the mild, hazy days of Indian summer, gives forth a 

 respectable echo of its more vigorous song of the breeding 

 season. Until very recently the breeding habitat of this 

 species has been wholly consigned to the far north; but it is 

 now well understood that it breeds abundantly in the lake 

 counties of Western New York, and more or less to the 

 eastward as far as Troy, raising two broods, the first being 



