The Horned Larks 
him now! Still there float down to us, the enraptured wife and me, 
those most ethereal strains, sublimated past all taint of earth, beatific, 
elysian. Ah! surely, we have lost him! He has gone to join the angels. 
“Chiquitica, on the nest, we have lost him.” “Never fear,” she answers; 
“Hark!” Stronger grows the dainty music once again. Stronger! 
Stronger! Dropping out of the boundless darkening blue, still by easy 
flights, a song for every step of Jacob’s ladder, our messenger is coming 
down. But the ladder does not rest on earth. When about two hundred 
feet high, the singer suddenly folds his wings and drops like a plummet 
to the ground. Within the last dozen feet he checks himself and lights 
gracefully near his nest. The bird-man steals softly away to comfort 
his own dear ones, grateful for the message of love and trust brought 
by a bird. 
Horned Larks are among the first to feel the prickings of a Feb¬ 
ruary sun. Communal life has been well enough in its way, but the 
interests of springtime are special. The transition is effected not without 
much riot of amorous pursuit, and some attendant heart-ache, no doubt; 
but by the end of February or April, according to local conditions, domestic 
