History 21 
Primitive Range—In this extended account those regions 
into which the Prairie Horned Lark has penetrated, apparently 
within recent times, have been most carefully surveyed. The 
earlier home of this form and the base region from which all 
this recent movement extended will be more briefly noted. 
Coues (1874) gave Iowa and Minnesota westward as the 
range of the then subspecies leucolaema from which praticola 
was later split off. Henshaw (1884) had specimens in breeding 
plumage from Minnesota and eastern Kansas (in addition to 
Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and [Illinois—see 
above). Dwight (1890) included eastern Kansas, eastern 
Nebraska, eastern Dakota and Manitoba with the western limit 
at the line when prairies cease and plains begin which ‘‘is also 
nearly coincident with the north and south line of twenty inches 
annual rain-fall.’’ Oberholser (1902) did not include more 
territory on the west than did Dwight. 
It is probable then that the home of the Prairie Horned Lark, 
prior to 1870, was restricted to that great prairie region that 
began with eastern Illinois, extended through Iowa, Minnesota, 
northern Missouri and the eastern ends of Kansas, Nebraska, 
South and North Dakota together with all the south half of 
Manitoba. Here it probably flourished in large numbers ready, 
as soon as the hand of man provided the proper conditions, to 
move out into all territory that the axe and the plow so un- 
wittingly made suitable. 
Henshaw (1884) gave as the distribution of this Lark, as 
already noted, the ‘‘upper. Mississippi Valley and region of the 
Great Lakes’’ with specimens in breeding plumage from Min- 
nesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Illinois, Missouri and 
eastern Kansas. Dwight (1890) extended this range to include 
Manitoba, Dakota and Nebraska, Vermont and Long Island. 
Oberholser (1902) further extended it to the north shore of 
the gulf of the Saint Lawrence (in 1918, however, he excluded 
this region), into the New England States through Maine and 
south into Pennsylvania, and at the present time there is evi- 
dence to show that Otocoris alpestris praticola now breeds in 
all the territory from the Maritime Provinces south to Maryland 
(excluding New Jersey and Delaware) west through West Vir- 
ginia, probably through northern Kentucky, all of Missouri, 
eastern Kansas, north through eastern Nebraska, eastern South 
