THE OOLOOIST 3H i<\) 



163 



which seemed a favorite perch for 

 them, as the top of it was well covered 

 with white droppings. 



April 8th I made a careful searcn 

 for the nest and finally found it about 

 twenty feet from the rock before 

 mentioned. It was a rather deep hol- 

 low in the sod, lined with grass, a 

 piece of string, a couple of feathers 

 and a small piece of cotton batting. 

 It contained three eggs, which appear- 

 ed normal in size and color for this 

 sub-species. Small cakes of mud. 

 evidently dug out of the nest hole by 

 the birds and dried from exposure to 

 the sun, were scattered around the 

 edge of the nest. Otherwise than 

 this, there was nothing to mark the 

 site of the nest from the surrounding 

 sods, covered at that time with dry 

 remains of last year's scanty growth 

 of grass and moss. No green sprotics 

 of any kind were visible on the past- 

 ure at this early date. 



The following day, April 9th, nine 

 inches of snow fell, drifting to a much 

 greater depth in some places. Two 

 days later the snow melted and the 

 ground was once more bare, and eggs 

 were safe after the storm, but I was 

 very much disappointed to find the 

 nest empty. 



Mr. Wardwell says that in a previ- 

 ous season when snow covered the 

 nest, the birds managed to clear it 

 away enough so that they kept on in- 

 cubating eggs. Possibly they cleared 

 it away this time and thus attracted 

 the attention of a crow or some pred- 

 atory animal to the nest and its con- 

 tents, as the ground all around it 

 must have been an unbroken white 

 expanse immediately after the storm. 



While crossing the pasture about a 

 week later Mr. Wardwell found two 

 of the missing eggs lying on the 

 ground about fifteen feet from the 

 nest. One was broken and looked as 

 though some bird might have pecked 



it open. The other was in perfect 

 condition, but proved to be fairly 

 heavily incubated. About seventy-five 

 yards from the spot where this early 

 nest was disturbed, the same pair of 

 birds, built a new nest, and on April 

 29th, it contained four young ones 

 about two days old. 



About a mile from this pasture is 

 another bare rounded hill top of quite 

 similar character situated within the 

 limits of the next town, Wakefield, 

 Mass. On April 8th Mr. Wardwell 

 and I visited this hill in Wakefield 

 and there we soon located another 

 pair of Prairie Horned* Larks, which 

 were feeding near the summit. 



April 14th, Mr. E. S. Coombs and I 

 found this same pair of birds on the 

 same part of the hill and we vainly 

 searched for their nest. April 21st, I 

 again made a thorough search and 

 finally found the nest, which con- 

 tained four eggs. This nest and nest- 

 ing site was almost identical with the 

 ones found at Stoneham. 



Both of these pastures where the 

 larks are breeding are on the round- 

 ed summits of the highest hills in this 

 section and the surface of the ground 

 is even and unbroken, except where 

 an occasional low rock crops out per- 

 haps a foot or two high. The only 

 vegetation is a scanty growth of grass 

 and moss and these hill-tops are the 

 most bleak and storm swept places 

 around here. 



No other birds were seen on them 

 early in April, and probably no one 

 would expect to find birds there at 

 that season unless looking especially 

 for larks. 



Mr. C. W. Townsend in this "Birds 

 of Essex County, Mass." gives the 

 Prairie Horned Lark as a probable 

 breeder in Essex County on the 

 strength of birds in juvenile plumage 

 being shot in that county in the 

 middle of August, 1903, 



