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Show lays 4 to 5 eggs each weighing i about 1 10 ounce. The eggs are light greenish blue rarely sprinkled sprink-led with reddish brown spots. There may be two annual broods but this is not always the case, i After the nesting period the male i loses the black appearance which makes him look like a white-winged white-winged blackbird. I LARK BUNTING Here is a sparrow that even ! the rankest amateur will recog- nize as being out of the ordinary ; run of sparrows. About 1 inches long with a wing-spread of 11 i inches and a tail 3V2 inches, it could be classed as larger than a Song Sparrow and smaller than a Towhee. The male in breeding plumage looks more like a small ; blackbird or maybe one might say ' a sparrow-sized blackbird. The male, female and young are brown with striped breasts and white wing patches. The bird weighs about one ounce, which is more i than a Junco weighs. I The Lark Bunting has been found all the way across the continent con-tinent from the Pacific Coast to Massachusetts but in spite of this it is essentially a bird of the West. It appears regularly and in good abundance in breeding season sea-son from southern Alberta to the southwestern Manitoba south to eastern New Mexico, northwestern northwest-ern Texas, eastern Nebraska and west central Minnesota. East of this area it is more or less accidental. acci-dental. The winter months are spent south of southern Texas, southern Arizona on to Sonora and southern Lower California. In all its range it is essentially a bird of the open plains rather than of the wooded areas. In its natural habitat it feeds on the seeds of weeds, grass and grain and on grasshoppers, beetles and weevils. In some instances it has been noted that 78 per cent of the food may be grasshoppers so there is little doubt about the usefulness of the bird under these circumstances. circum-stances. The bird has won popularity enough in part of its range to have been selected as the State Bird of Colorado. This is probably not due to any recogniition of its economic importance because at times it may harm growing grain. Rather the bird offers an appeal because of its appearance. The fact that it destroys great quantities quanti-ties of Russian thistle seeds is of course to its credit but no matter mat-ter how much of the surplus the bird might destroy there still would be enough left over to assure as-sure survival of Russian thistle. The nest is built on the ground often sunk into the ground. It is made of grasses and is lined with down, fine hair and fine dried grasses. In the nest the female |