THE PRAIRIE HORNED LARK. 



205 



Labrador birds, it may be, are still flocking; Bluebird has not brought the 

 official tidings of spring from the Southland ; but only let the February sun 

 shine a little while and "Prairie's" brave courting song is heard from on high. 

 When the frost is out of the ground, altho there may still be ample 

 danger of snows, the sturdy pair sink a deep, cup-shaped depression in the 

 moist earth and line it plentifully with dried grasses, last year's thistle down, 

 and such. In this latitude the eggs are laid in March or early April, three 

 or four in number, heavily and oftenest minutely, dotted with dull olive or 

 greenish brown, but sometimes bearing spots as large as those of Shrikes' 

 eggs. The favorite way to locate Horned Larks' nests in season is to post 

 one's self at the edge of a field and watch the female skulk to her nest. I 



Photo by the Autiior 

 "AT THE SACRED HOUR OF SUNSET." 



have followed a bird with my glasses half wa}- across a forty acre field until 

 she was so far away that I could judge of her whereabouts only by the fact 

 that movement had apparently ceased. As I walked straight toward the nest 

 the bird would flush at forty or fifty yards. 



A first brood is raised in April and a second in June or Jul}'. Accord- 

 ing to Prof. Lynds Jones three broods are raised in Iowa, one early in April, 

 another early in June, and a third in late July, or August. 



But the chief interest of nesting time centers in the song flight of the 

 male. The song itself is perhaps nothing remarkable, a little ditty or suc- 

 cession of sprightlv syllables which have no considerable resonance or mod- 

 ulation, altho they quite defy vocalization ; yet such are the circumstances 

 attending its delivery that it is set down by every one as "pleasing," while 



