Note 4 — BIRDS OF THE ARID PLAIN

He sometimes ventures, though sparingly, as far east as Illinois and Wisconsin; still my statement is true—I have never heard the western lark even in the bottoms and meadows of the broad valley east of the Missouri River, while, one spring morning, I did hear one of these birds fluting in the top of a cottonwood tree in my yard on the high western bluff of that stream.