INTRODUCTION 
The Bird. —Out at the bleak end of that ecological series of 
bird habitats, that begins with the heavy forests and ends with 
the barrens, lives America’s only Lark, Otocoris alpestris 
(Linn.). In that region extending from the Missouri to the 
Atlantic and from Kansas to Ontario the particular form of 
this Lark is Otocoris alpestris praticola Hensh., the Prairie 
Horned Lark. Far from the treeless Arctics, far from the 
deserts, Otocoris alpestris praticola finds as his barrens the 
plowed fields of the Midwest, the tree-denuded, wind-swept hill 
tops of the Northeastern States, those peculiarly unnatural and 
artificial barrens, the hazards of modern-day golf courses. 
If for no other reason than that here is a bird nesting where 
no bird has a right to nest; a bird in a niche that demands not 
vegetation but lack of it; a bird alone and unique in its nesting 
site without a competitor and far out at the end of the series— 
if for no other reason than this purely ecological one the Prairie 
Horned Lark invites close study. But if we add to this the 
fact that it is a Lark, a representative of our only Lark, with the 
song of a Lark, the ways of a Lark and many a habit and 
idiosynerasy peculiarly its own, then this account has its full 
excuse for being, needs no apology. 
The Problem.—Desultory observations of the Prairie Horned 
Lark were begun many years ago in eastern Nebraska where 
the writer was born. Recollections of winter rabbit hunting 
carry also associations of Larks on the wind-cleaned pastures 
and great fields of fall plowing. Their nests were found on 
the ridges of listed corn and an observation of a song still 
remains clear and trenchant. We were shocking wheat. (hence 
mid-July) when a Lark was seen climbing the air for his song. 
We watched him against the vivid sky during his long min- 
utes aloft; were amazed by that final headlong drop to earth. 
The intense work upon the observations for this paper was 
begun in June, 1925, at Evanston, Ill, continued there until 
the fall of 1926, transferred to Cornell University in the fall of 
1926, and continued at the latter place until late summer 1927. 
Twenty-six nests were located at Evanston, twenty-three of 
which were visited daily from the time of their discovery until 
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