172 



THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



The Prairie Mirage. 



BY HOWARD C- BROWN. 



Strange is it indeed, that to so many persons who have spent their 

 Hves upon the prairie, a mirage is something which is far distant; 

 a thing entirely unrelated to their life. Many persons associate the 

 mirage only with the desert. This seems odd enough when one 

 considers the many beautiful mirages which appear in the prairie 

 skies when a reflected grass area seems only a further extension of 

 the vast, real stretch, which, in great, gentle waves of Titanic 

 magnitude, roll, of a prairie morning, in undulating green, wind 

 responsiveness, under the lifting sun. Few things can inspire one 

 with more sincere thoughts of the greatness of the universe, than 

 can the wide stretches of prairie of our land. And the mirages are 

 interesting to me in that they were often so thoroughly linked, in 

 the past, with the life of the pioneer. 



If he loved beauty, the pioneer never ceased to revel in those 

 wondrous reflections. But the mirage was not alone a thing of 

 beauty. If it mirrored an enemy's camp, in time of hostilities, 

 it served a utilitarian purpose. But to those who did not love it 

 for its beauty, and for whom it served no real purpose, still it became 



