Taken in Ventura County 

 Photo by Donald R. Dickey 



DINNER FOR FIVE 



The Western Lark Sparrow 



<-^^%, the purple of massed lilies, or the honest blue of 



^^•^3 '" lupine, wave on wave. Little rounded chains of 



flanking hills descend with graceful sweep in 

 cadences of green. Their sides, too, are faintly 

 terraced with the concentric furrows of a thou- 

 sand cattle trails now smothered in green. Grass 

 is everywhere; but over it all is the pale glaucous 

 shimmer of the younger sages, vying with the 

 accumulated grays of last year's flower-stalks. 

 x\nd here and there, partially yet gracefully dis- 

 tributed, are spaces dotted with the larger 

 "sages," chamisal or eruptive Rhus, with their 

 stronger note of stippled blue-green. 



A lazy country road skirts this scene of 

 beauty; and, upon either side, its intermittent 

 strand of fence-wire, sagging indolently, sup- 

 ports a gallant crowd of the merriest, sweetest sparrows to be found in the 



whole glad realm. No, they are not a crowd, 



either, for although the Western Lark Spar- _ 



rows foregather here annually to pass y/ 



the season of courtship, and although \\JL\tf 



one may count a hundred of them 



in the length of a dozen panels, 



they are not animated to any 



considerable extent by flock 



impulses, nor does one 



think of them en masse. & 



Whether it be run- 

 ning nimbly along the I 



ground, or leaping into 



the air to catch a risen I 



grasshopper, one feels in- I 



stinctively that here is a ' 



dainty breed. The bird 



endears itself, moreover, 



because of its fondness for 1 



wayside fellowship. If you 



are on horseback, the Lark 



Sparrow, like the Horned Lark 



loves to trip ahead coquettishly 



along the dusty road, only to yield 



place at last to your insistent steed 



Taken in Washington 

 Photo by the Author 



A SAGE- BUSH NEST 



237 



