204 



THE PRAIRIE HORNED LARK. 



customed to my presence, and I showed myself freely both before and after 

 without causing alarm. Indeed, when I retired from the scene I passed right 

 through their ranks and the birds simply melted away before me and quietly 

 resumed their feeding at one side without any general disturbance. How 

 then account for this sudden flight impulse? Some would suggest an un- 

 heard command from a sentinel. Such officials possibly exist, but their 

 services are irregular and inconspicuous. On the whole I am inclined to 

 give considerable weight to the suggestion of Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson that 

 animals and birds in flock are moved by telepathic influences, emanating, 

 as may chance, from one or another of their number. In this case, certainly. 



'DEN'OTES HIMSELF * * TO SOME MAKE-BEEIEVE-REI.UCTAM LADY.' 



the psychical explanation of the well known phenomenon ap]3ears plausible 

 and attractive. The unreasoning apprehensiveness of a single individual — 

 it might have been frightened at the shape of a cornstalk, or anything as 

 trivial — was instantly communicated to the whole flock, and put them into 

 sudden panic. 



With the first signs of returning spring the Prairie Plorned Eark ab- 

 jures the madding crowd and de\-otes himself to the task of proving his 

 superior merits and attractions to some make-believe-reluctant ladv. The 



