Nov., 1912 A HORS?BAC.K TRIP ACROSS MONTANA 217 and neck. We were g!ad to cross the bridge' over the Madison River and' find shelter from the pests in the town of Three Forks. In the morning I left Three Forks, crossing over the Jefferson, the third of the rivers which, uniting to form the Missouri' a few miles north, gives the l?lace its name. I had now entered Broadwater County. The .road here leaves the river and traverses the hills several miles to the west of it. For some dis- tance I climbed up the bare grass hills. The soil was dry and rocky and the country consequently unsettled and used only for stock range. On the east side of the road were several coulees, where sage-brush grew thickly. From'one of these came the song Of a Sage Thrasher, and I turned my horse up the coulee to hear it better, and finally get a glimpse of the bird. In this part of Montana the Sage Thrasher is decidedly rare. This one made my third in over three years experience, and all the three were in widely separated localities. Sage- brush is slowly disappearing before the advance of settlement in many places, and with it many sage-loving birds are becoming rare. The rarity of ?he Sage Thrasher, however, cannot be for this reason alone, for there are many places where sage is .still common, in which there are no Thrashers. The song of the Sage Thrasher is something between that o?f the Brown Thrasher and that of the Solitaire. His voice is very similar to the Soliicaire's, and, heard at a distance, the songs sound much alike. From close at hand, how- ever, the song becomes less a mixed jumble of sounds, and the rhythmic quality of the Thrasher is more noticeable. There are certain definite phrases, repeated two or three times as with the Brown Thrasher, but there is no pause between them. I believe the bird is more sparing of its song, not appreciating an audi- ence, but slinking silently off into the sage at the first approach, as this one I was watching did when I drew near. I soon reached the top of a low divide, in an area of flat open prairie. For several miles here the land was typical prairie land in every respect. The prin- cipal vegetation was buffalo-grass and prickly pear, and I was much delighted. to find a typical prairie bird, the McCown Longspur. In fact Longspurs and Desert Horned Larks were the only birds there were on this area. The Horned Lark, while common throughout the prairie regions, is found in many other dry grassy areas also, that are not true prairie, but the Longspur belongs to the prairie and the prairie alone. I had not supposed before, that this species ever occurred westward and southward of the main prairie region of the state, and for the remainder of the day I felt the charm and delight of having made a new discovery. The Longspurs were in full song, a charmingly sweet song, that tinkled across the prairie continually and froin all sides. The song. has been compared to that of the Horned Lark, but to my mind it is much hetter. The quality is sweeter and richer; the notes are louder and clearer, and above all. the man- ner in which it is rendered is so different from that of the lark or of any other bird, that the lark passes into insignificance in comparison. The song is nearly always rendered when in flight. The bird leaves the ground and flies tipward on a long slant till fifteen or twenty feet high, then it spreads both wings outward and upward, lifts and spreads its white tail feathers, erects the tipper tail coverts and feathers of the lower back, and bursting into song, floats downward into the grass like an animated parachute, singing all the way. I soon left the prairie behind, and crossed an area where dry farlners had very recently taken tip the land. New fences, without gates, stretched across the
