22 £be TOarbler 



in our own century. And both bison and antelope would surely tread along 

 the lines of least resistance; so that they, equally with modern bovines and 

 horses, would fail to tread upon ground nests that lay beneath the shelter 

 of a single bush; be it never so scanty and so tiny. And, as for the cactus: 

 no creature would seek food within its horrid domain; where food were else- 

 where to be found. 



Few students of breeding conditions are liable to grasp, within the 

 earlier periods of their stud}-, the essential link between breeding times and 

 food conditions. Those of us whose limits of original bird study have trailed 

 along the fertile regions of the Middle West can conceive it hardly possible, — 

 for example, — that our favorite Marsh Hawk, which lays, with us, from a 

 normal setting of five or six to a maximum eight eggs should lay but three, 

 in arid Arizona. So, likewise, the neophyte often wonders why the winter- 

 ing bird should not lay early. Yet only when he pauses to consider that 

 fledglings must eat does he grasp the reason for delay. The Chickadee and 

 Horned Lark will rustle, cheerily and with filling success, each for himself, 

 the winter long. But, — feeding, each, a number of other hungry ones, — 

 that is quite another matter. 



This would seem to explain why the Desert Horned Lark should seem 

 to breed late, on the sage plains of the Great Basin. One relucts from gen- 

 eralizing out of a few instances; yet it seems fairly well established that the 

 breeding of the resident Horned Lark, in Montana, is appreciably earlier 

 than on the plains of Wyoming. Prof. Silloway, for illustration, has found 

 nests quite commonly as early as the middle of April in Central Montana; 

 while the writer has never found nests containing eggs, before the first of 

 May. (All this, of course, ought not to be taken as conclusive). 



Arid conditions affect the number of eggs, also. I sometimes find sets 

 of four; and even once a set of five. But sets of three are much the com- 

 moner; and those of two are not uncommon. Like conditions maintain as 

 regards the number of broods that each pair of Desert Horned Larks may 

 raise: In Minnesota, southerly, it seems clearly proveable that the Prairie 

 Horned Lark normally rears at least three broods per season; but in North- 

 eastern Wyoming, at least, one does not often find evidence of the rearing of 

 even a second brood. This would seem to be due to the fact that the rain- 

 fall is often scanty, in the region indicated, after the middle of June. 



One is inclined to think that, despite the protection afforded by the sites 

 chosen and by the close-sitting habits of the bird, the mortality, in case of 

 both eggs and young, with this Horned Lark, is very great. One whose 

 eye is ever on the search, over the sage plain herbage, during all June, would 

 be sure to observe the mottled plumage of fledgling Desert Horned Larks; 

 paler though it be, as compared with like phases of the plumage of the 

 Prairie Horned Lark. Yet, in point of fact, fledglings are seldom seen. In 



