try of motion. One or two writers have insisted
that the horned lark's empyrean song compares favorably with that of
the European skylark; but, loyal and patriotic an American as we are,
honesty compels us to concede that our bird's voice is much feebler and
less musical than that of his celebrated relative across the sea. It
sounds like the unmelodious clicking of pebbles, while the song of the
skylark is loud, clear, and ringing.

Our birds of the plain find insects to their taste in the short grass
which carpets the land with greenish or olive gray. The following
morning a mother lark was seen gathering insects and holding them in her
bill--a sure sign of fledglings in the near neighborhood. I decided to
watch her, and, if possible, find her bantlings. It required not a
little patience, for she was wary and the sun poured down a flood of
almost blistering heat. This way and that she scurried over the ground,
now picking up an insect and adding it to the store already in her bill,
and now standing almost erect to eye me narrowly and with some
suspicion. At length she seemed to settle down for a moment upon a
particular spot, and when I looked again with my glass, her beak was
empty. I examined every inch of ground, as I thought, in the
neighborhood of the place where she had stopped, but could find neither
nest nor nestlings.

Again I turned my attention to the mother bird, which meanwhile had
gathered another bunch of insects and was hopping about with them
through the croppy grass, now and then adding to her accumulation until
her mouth was full. For a long time she zigzagged about, going by
provoking fits and starts. At length fortune favored me, for through my
levelled glass I suddenly caught sight of a small, grayish-looking ball
hopping and tumbling from a cactus clump toward the mother bird, who
jabbed the contents of her bill into a small, open mouth. I followed a
bee-line to the spot, and actually had to scan the ground sharply for a
few moments before I could distinguish the youngster from its
surroundings, for it had squatted flat, its gray and white plumage
harmonizing perfectly with the grayish desert grass.

[Illustration: _Lark_

"_It was a dear little thing_"]

It was a dear little thing, and did not try to escape, although I took
it up in my hand and stroked its downy back again and again. Sometimes
it closed its eyes as if it were sleepy. When I placed it on the ground,
it hopped away a few inc