290 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



tarsus is as obtuse as the anterior, instead of being very acute. 

 There is a deep separating groove on the inner side of the tarsus; 

 and there may be really but one plate di\aded transversely, the edges 

 meeting at this place. '^ 



In the elongated hind claw and lengthened tertials, general style 

 of coloration, mode of life, and manner of nesting, there is a decided 

 approximation in the Alaudidso to the Anthinae, of the family Mota- 

 cillidse; but in these the posterior edge of the tarsus is sharp and 

 undivided transversely (acutiplantar), the toes more deeply cleft, the 

 bill more slender, etc., their relations being decidedly nearer to the 

 Mniotiltidse than to the present family. 



The Larks are a strongly marked group of song birds, distinguished 

 from all other oscinine groups by their latiplantar tarsus, as described 

 above. They are terrestrial birds of small size and plain colors, 

 feeding on both grain and insects. Many species are good songsters ; 

 indeed, the Skylark (Alauda arvensis) is so especially renowned that 

 "of all birds it holds unquestionably the foremost place in our litera- 

 ture, and there is hardly a poet or poetaster who has not made it his 

 theme, to say nothing of the many writers of prose who have cele- 

 brated its qualities in passages that will be remembered so long as 

 our language lasts."'' 



The family is almost exclusively an Old World one, only one genus 

 occurring regularly in America, this represented by a single species, 

 also, Palaearctic or circumpolar, which has several congeners in Asia 

 and northern Africa. A second genus occurs in North America as 

 a straggler to Greenland and the Bermudas, the same species (the 

 Skylark) having also been introduced into the United States, and 

 become naturalized, apparently, in a few restricted areas. A closely 

 related form (Alauda arvensis peMnensis) , which represents the fore- 

 going in northeastern Asia and is only subspecifically distinct, pos- 

 sibly occurs as a straggler on the Aleutian Islands. The Old World 

 forms are numerous, embracing, according to the latest authority, 

 more than one hundred species. 



KEY TO THE AMERICAN GENERA OF ALAUDID^. 



a. Toes relatively longer, the middle one (without claw) much longer than exposed 

 culmen, the hallux longer than lateral toes; a minute spurious primary; tail shorter 

 than distance from bend of wing to end of secondaries, deeply emarginate; crown 

 with a blunt crest, but no elongated, horn-like tuft on side of occiput; plumage 

 dull brownish, conspicuously streaked on upper parts and on chest, but without 

 black or dusky areas on crown, sides of head, or chest Alauda (p. 291) 



O' The Alaudidse constitute part of Sundevall's Scvtelliplantares, and are commonly 

 mentioned as scutelliplantar Oscines, the remaining Scutelliplant'ares of Sundevall 

 consisting of the Clamatores. The Alaiidine tarsal envelope is, however, exceedingly 

 distinct in its character from the holaspidean Clamatorial type, while at the same time 

 it is equally different from that of all other Oscines in the respects pointed out. 



& Newton, Dictionai'y of Birds, p. 507. 



