210 The Horned Lark 



ing in wide aerial circuits he drops by slow stages until at last his hymn 

 is ended, and, closing his wings, he drops like a meteor until near the 

 earth, when he spreads his wings, checking his headlong rush, turns, and 

 swings along the sod until his toes touch the grass-tops as lightly as the 

 summer wind, and he comes to earth again near the little nest, the center 

 of all his hopes. 



Such is the song-flight of the Prairie Horned Lark a wonderful 

 performance. The last stanza of Shelly 's "Ode to the Skylark'' might 

 well be applied to its American cousin : 



"Leave to the Nightingale her shady wood; 



A privacy of glorious light is thine. 

 Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 



Of harmony, with instinct more divine; 

 Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam 

 True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home." 



The true larks, of which the Horned Lark is an example, have a long, 

 straight claw (the "lark-spur") on the hind toe, and a slightly crested 

 head ; but Horned Larks have in addition over the eye, and extending 



to the back of the head, a pair of narrow, black, 

 Characteristics pointed crests that ordinarily lie close to the head ; 



but when the male is excited by passion or surprise 

 these crests are erected, so that his head resembles slightly that of 

 an owl, with two little black ears sticking up. 



Almost everywhere in the treeless lands of North America Horned 

 Larks are found. In the East they breed southward to West Virginia, 

 and in the West to Kansas, New Mexico and California. 



In the time of Wilson and Audubon only the typical Horned Lark, 

 or "Shore Lark," a bird of the Atlantic coastal region, was known in the 

 East ; but since then a somewhat different western subspecies, the Prairie 

 Horned Lark, has expanded its range to the eastward. As the eastern 

 country was cleared and settled, more open ground to which it had been 

 accustomed became available there for this subspecies; and, as the 

 western country was settled, trees were grown, much land was put under 

 constant cultivation, thousands of larks' nests were destroyed as the 

 farmers turned the prairie sod, and less room remained for this lover 



of the open grass-lands. Possibly for these reasons it 

 Change of j ias g ra( j ua iiy extended its range eastward to Quebec 



and New England. It is a rather pale variety, with 

 some white about the head in place of the yellow of the typical eastern 

 bird. The "Desert" subspecies is also extending eastward. 



The beginner in bird-study may not recognize the Horned Larks by 

 their flight or by their whistled notes, for both resemble those of the 

 American Pipit, or Titlark : but he may know them when they are on the 

 ground by their pinkish-brown color, their thick-set, square-shouldered 

 look, their mouse-like movements, and the distinct black and yellow, or 

 yellowish-white, markings shown by the male bird on the side of the head. 



