22 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



performer literally dropped from his high altitude, stopping twice on his 

 almost vertical descent to hover for a moment, his last stop being near 

 the ground." 



Mr. Isaac E. Hess writes: 



"One fine April morning of last season, I was treated to a mid-air 

 rendition from Praticola that surely would rival the best production of 

 the far-famed English Skylark. 



"I was first attracted by an unusually animated song which seemed 

 directly above me. I soon discovered a Horned Lark, with rapidly vibrat- 

 ing wings, circling round and round, over a freshly plowed field. He 

 seemed wholly carried away with the power of his song as he mounted 

 higher and higher, until he passed beyond my vision. I could still hear 

 him as the climax was reached, when with almost a scream of ecstacy he 

 fluttered back to earth 'sliding down on the scale of his own music.' He 

 dropped to the surface utterly spent by his violent exertions and the in- 

 teresting performance was over." 



Florence Boyd, a school girl of Highland Park, writes: 



"Last spring as the potato bugs were very numerous on our vines, 

 mother offered my brother and me a penny for each one we killed. We 

 worked after school in the afternoons until it seemed that we would have 

 plenty of pennies for thrift stamps, but we hadn't been working many 

 days before Mr. and Mrs. Grosbeak visited our garden and then we lost 

 our positions. Early in the morning — long before we were up> — -our little 

 friends, the Grosbeaks, were busy devouring potato bugs. Even when 

 the gardener was hoeing the potatoes the Grosbeaks would follow at his 

 heels eating all the bugs they could find. In fact he had to be careful not 

 to step on what he called 'bug birds.' The Grosbeaks nested in a syringa 

 bush behind our barn and all summer they ate the potato bugs off two 

 patches of potatoes, each about fifteen feet by thirty feet, and I will have to 

 admit my brother and I didn't see one potato bug on our plants the rest 

 of the summer." 



With reference to the inquiry about the Grosbeak, Mr. Hess has some 

 very interesting and conclusive evidence to give. This relates to a pair that 

 selected a site for their nest in a tree in his yard where he could watch the 

 daily progress. 



Mr. Hess writes : 



"The nest building covered a period of several days but the Grosbeaks 

 were anything but idle. They were proving good citizens indeed. Two 

 potato patches belonging to neighbors seemed to draw my tenants with 

 a magnetic power. Curiosity impelled me to search for the cause of their 

 frequent trips to the patches. Back and forth I found them walking 

 through the potato rows, reaching up to gather the eggs of the potato 

 beetle that were grouped on the under side of the leaves. When one of 

 the older beetles was found, the captor flew to the limb of a nearby tree 

 and with one blow cracked its shell. Keeping this up day after day the 

 useful birds cleaned the patches thoroughly. Then those gardens farther 

 away were visited and the owners, boasting that they were free from the 

 pest of bugs, were surprised and deeply Interested when told of the cause. 

 Doubting Thomases were invited back of my store to see for themselves 

 and my field glasses were in constant demand. Farmers who had heard 



