602 ON THE NESTING OF CERTAIN HAWKS, ETC. 
readily be caught during the first week or two. At this age the 
bill is about two inches long, comparatively stout throughout, and 
scarcely decurved. 
Among the smaller birds of the boundless prairie, a few species 
are specially notable. The commonest and most universally dif- 
fused is the western horned lark (Eremophila alpestris leucoleema) ; 
we find it breeding everywhere. It begins to lay very early; 
the curiously speckled young ones, quite unlike: the adults, may 
be taken any time in June, already flying; while eggs (doubtless 
of a second brood) may be secured through July. The mode 
of nesting of the larks, and of the three most conspicuous prairie 
fringillaries, is substantially the same. The three to which I 
are the bay-winged bunting (Pooecetes gramineus confinis), ha 
chestnut-collared bunting (Plectrophanes ornatus) and Maccown s 
bunting (P. Maccownii). These two Plectrophanes are the most 
characteristic of the prairie sparrows, and are found together m 
abundance in most of the regions here under consideration. P. 
ofnatus however, is rather the more easterly of the two. Thus, 
it is common all over northern Dakota and the eastern pat of 
Montana; while I have seen none since I came the first few miles 
up the Milk river, where P. Maccownii increases in numbers, es 
becomes the prevailing, and finally the only species. The pg 
collared has a very pretty habit of soaring, like Sprague $ | 
while the female is incubating, singing in the air, and letting ™ be 
gradually down like a parachute, with the wings stretched up™ 
at a right angle with each other—an action that displays E we 
_ black of the under parts and the white of the tail to the ee 
vantage. Floating thus lightly in the air they remind one 0f Y. 
terflies; and their song, though not of the highest exoellen 
sweet, gladsome and musical. the 
Great numbers of water-fowl stay their flight to nese be 
pools and sloughs of our Northern Boundary ; among thop ug Z p 
mentioned mallards, widgeons, shovellers, teals, pintails, g ick 
buffie-heads and wild geese. To resume the subject beet : 
this slight article began, namely, exceptional modes of n a 
would say that the geese of this region sometimes nest ee , 
see d then 2 
ground around the ponds, as geese ordinarily do, an jy that 
they sometimes nest in trees, somewhat like’ wood ducks, oy 
they do not enter holes for this purpose. Arboreal ni 
dification © 
i is a W Bo 
geese sounds strangely, but it is nevertheless true ; and n? : 
