Lark WESTERN BIRDS 



The Horned Lark is nearly eight inches long, and the 

 general color of upper plumage is a rich brown, becoming 

 a light cinnamon on neck, rump, upper wing coverts 

 and tail coverts, the tail itself being black with the outer 

 vanes of outer feathers margined with white. The dis- 

 tinctive thing about this bird, and its allies, is the head 

 and throat markings. The forehead, line over the eye, 

 ear patch, and throat are a rich sulphur yellow; the fore 

 part of crown and a tuft of elongated feathers on either 

 side of the head, a mark from the bill which passes 

 below the eye and then down the side of the head, and 

 a crescent on breast, are black; the rest of lower parts 

 are white, more or less soiled with dusky spots. The 

 short black tufts on the side of the crown can be raised, 

 and so have given the birds their name. Female sim- 

 ilar but markings less sharply defined. 



This bird breeds in the far north and winters, only, as 

 far south as the Ohio Valley and Georgia. They fre- 

 quent both the seacoast and large, open tracts in the 

 interior, sometimes joining bands of Snow Buntings 

 from which they are easily identified. 



The Prairie Horned Lark (O. a. praticola) differs from 

 the preceding chiefly in being smaller and paler and hav- 

 ing the forehead and line over the eye, white instead of 

 yellow, and the throat only yellowish. It is a bird of 

 the prairies and open, barren stretches of the middle 

 west, rather than the far east, breeding from Manitoba 

 and Quebec to eastern Kansas, southern Missouri, Ohio, 

 West Virginia, and Connecticut; wintering south in 

 Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia. 



Breeding in the far north but wintering south to Ne- 

 vada, Utah, Kansas, and Michigan, is found the Hoyt's 

 Horned Lark (P. a. hoyti), which differs from alpestris 

 in having the yellow of head and neck replaced by white, 

 except the forehead which is a dirty greenish white, and 

 the throat which is yellow. 



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