Those days were filled with prepara- 
tions for work upon the land. Every 
farmer was busy getting out his seeders, 
his drags and cultivators ; scouring up his 
plows, and fanning over his seed-wheat 
and doing other things necessary for the 
seeding. The music of the prairie chick- 
ens has now become a vast symphony 
impossible to transcribe. Thousands of 
throats pour forth the ‘ ‘ boom,hoom,boom 
— cutta,cutta wah w'hoop— boom, boom— 
wha-oop! ye-ah! ye-ah! whoop.” Reso- 
nant from every knoll, near and far ; 
filling the mellow dawn wdth cheer, and 
ringing the horizon round with sounds: 
a song that with the glory of the opening 
day is sublime for its wealth of sugges- 
tions and its power of prophecy. On 
such mornings we drive our team afield, 
the sun just rising, the sky clear, the 
west wind soft and warm. 
Albinism an4 Melanism in North 
American Birds* Euthven Deane, 
Cm CUpzdo ^ 
BniLN.O.O. l.ApriJ. 1876. p ,22 
33 
