SUMMARY 
This paper attempts to give the history of the Prairie Horned 
Lark as carefully and extensively as the literature, more than 
220 visits to occupied territory, 33 nests, and over two years of 
study at Evanston, Ill., and Ithaca, N. Y. would allow. Visits 
were made to Prairie Horned Lark territory every month in the 
year. Thirty nests were followed daily from their discovery 
until they ceased to be occupied. The paper deals with a single 
bird subspecies yet so manifold are the fields against which such 
a subject impinges that even an extensive paper will miss some 
elements altogether, treat but briefly of many others, and cover 
thoroughly but a very few. 
Summaries accompany most of the major sections of this 
treatise. Here will be considered only the more important points. 
I. Range. 
A. Extension of range. Henshaw erected the subspecies 
Otocoris alpestris praticola in 1884, splitting it from O. a. alpes- 
tris. Prior to this, records of a new form of Lark and new Lark 
breeding records were published from lower Ontario and New 
York. These were variously interpreted as a “paler form’’ or 
as southward extensions of O. a. alpestris. Following 1884 a 
consistent and progressive series of records demonstrated that 
the Prairie Horned Lark, coming up probably from Michigan 
through Ontario, invaded successively New York, Vermont, 
husetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut. From 
New York or Vermont it seems to have invaded Quebee much 
later; and lastly on the north, (probably from New England 
states) New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. 
Shortly after its entry into New York, the Lark appeared in 
western Pennsylvania, then farther east in that state, and south 
into Maryland and West Virginia. Less complete evidence 
seems to show that Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, probably northern 
Kentucky, and southern Missouri have been occupied by this 
Lark since white man has entered and altered those regions. 
The regular advance of the bird, always consistent with geo 
graphic conditions, is suggested as an irrefutable evidence that 
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