Page:Condor17(5).djvu/8

 178 THI CONDOR Vol. XVII waves and bows about you, the sheen of the sun on its bent stems. Then there are the prairie flowers on the hill-sides ! Black-eyed susans, purple cone flow- ers, a variety of locos hiding their poison under soft pinks and lavenders, slen- der stems hung with drooping blue bells, patches of white anemones, and best of all, the beautiful red prairie lily, prairie cousin of the tiger lily. In these wild gardens Robert o' Lincoln raises his brood. But he must be about it, for while the grain is still standing the grass ripens and his family must .be ready to fly before the mower. For even the sloughs are mowed, as hay is scarce. A singular effect is produced of mowed circles in big wheat fields. Before the mower comes, the Bobolink must put on his brown traveling shit. The last of July no blackcoats were in evidence, but large flocks of brown ones were seen rising from the fields with the unmistakable Bobolink ktink. A few black-coated Lark Buntings were seen before moulting time in the Sheyenne River vailey, the only ones met with all summer, found the same day and near the same part of the valley as the Longspurs. Rare birds on the eastern edge of their range that, like the low forms of sagebrush in the van- guard, fill the mind with rich western memories. Calamospiza had been in my mind all day, and as we drove along near nightfall we suddenly came to the little band of four. Never had Buntings looked so handsome, their coats never so jet black, their wing-patches never so snowy. Happy moment! Well may it be remembered with all its setting; for that was a worthy one, the slanting sunset light vivifying the green of the combed wheat fields, warming their yel- low straw stacks, glowing softly over the smooth dimpled prairie hills in the background. Sunset comes so late and sunrise so early in that country of high latitudes that the birds must either have abnormally long days, take long noonday naps, or, like Stevensoh's children and all good North Dakota farmers, "go to bed by day"; for on the longest June days the sunset glow lasted till ten o'clock and it was daylight again between three and four, the birds beginning to sing as promptl. y as if it were time to get up. Owls and Nighthawks might well have to hunt by day! The few Nighthawks I saw in the day time were perch- ing on fence posts or telegraph poles from which it was easy to make aerial sallies. Besides these more notable birds of the open grassland, there were the minor songsters of the prairie. The humble voices of the Savannah and Grass- hopper sparrows often rose from the weeds and fences as we passed, and the thin tinkle of the Horned Lark was also sometimes heard from the broken ground. Minor songsters, surely, but even philosophers sometimes find it hard to make such a cheerful noise in the world. Kingbirds undeniably come in the category of minor songsters, but their .cheerful noise is often vituperative. Be ihis as it may, as you drive across the prairie, they--and there are two forms of them, the Eastern and the Arkan- sas--often possess the fences, an Eastern on one length of wire perhaps, and an Arkansas on the next; and both birds frequent not only the fences but the shore-line, the Eastern bird apparently catching insects started up by the in- coming wavelets. While the Savannah, and Grasshopper sparrows, Horned Larks, and King- birds are all minor songsters, the Vesper Sparrow and the Western Meadow- lark two of the most familiar birds of the prairie--come in an entirely dif- ferent musical category. The two, unlike as they are, may be classed together, for the quality of the Vesper's song at its best allies it to that of the Meadow-