44 NEOCORYS SPRAGUEI, SKYLARK. 



me any clue to its whereabouts; and though I made careful search 

 for the nest at intervals for several days, during^ which time I fre- 

 quently saw the same pair, I was unsuccessful. No nests are harder to 

 tind than those of prairie birds, for there is nothing to guide one, and 

 they are not often discovered except by accident, such as stumbling on 

 one and scaring off the parent. But at length, a few days afterward, in 

 finally renewing a particularly thorough search, a little bird, just able 

 to liutter a few feet, was seen and caught, and in a few moments the 

 rest of the family, sitting a few feet apart, were also secured — four in 

 all. They had just left the nest, and yet I could not find it, though a 

 perfectly bare depression of the ground, covered with droppings, just 

 where the birds were, may have been their temporary resting place. 

 My friend, Mr. Allen, was more fortunate on the Yellowstone Expedition 

 which he accompanied the same season, and he obligingly gives me the 

 following account: 



"The only nest we found was placed on the ground, and neatly formed 

 of dry fine grass. It was thinly arched over with the same material, 

 and being built in a tuft of rank grass, was most thoroughly concealed. 

 The bird would seem to be a close setter, as in this case the female re- 

 mained on the nest till I actually stepped over it, she brushing against 

 my feet as she went off. The eggs were five in number, rather long and 

 pointed, measuring about 0.90 by O.GO inches, of a grayish-white color, 

 thickly and minutely flecked with darker, giving them a decidedly pur- 

 plish tint." 



I saw no Skylarks after about the middle of September, and their 

 numbers sensibly diminished after August. I am entirely ignorant of 

 their winter resorts ; we may presume that they scatter over the prairies 

 to the south of their breeding range, but no one appears to have ob- 

 served them at any other season. Yet the case is not more remarkable 

 than that of Baird's Bunting, which nobody found until last year. 

 These two s[)ecies are so intimately associated during the breeding sea- 

 son, and have so many characteristics in common, that it would not be 

 surprising if they migrated much together. Before the Larks leave 

 Northern Dakota — if they really do forsake it — they go into moult, and 

 during this period they are very quiet and inconspicuous, keeping hid- 

 den for the most part in the grass, whence they are only flushed by 

 accident, rising with apparent reluctance to settle again soon. They are 

 now scattered over the prairie, mixed with Savanna Sparrows, Baird's, 

 and other Buntings of the same region. 



As this bird is very little known, the following descriptions, prepared 

 upon examination of over fifty specimens, may be given ; that of the 

 young bird, and of the fall plumage, differing materially from the adult, 

 have remained hitherto entirely unknown: 



Adult, ill hreedinq season : Eye black. Bill above blackish, below pale flesh color, like 

 the feet. Above dark browu, everywhere vavier^ated with pale gray streaks, constitut- 

 ing the e<li.';iugs of the featlua's, in largest pattern on the niiiklle of the back, smallest 

 on the hind neclc. Below dull whitish, Avith a more or less evident wash of light 

 brown acrt)ss the breast and along the sides ; the breast sharply streaked, the sides less 

 distinctly so, with a few small sparse blackish-brown marks ; a more or less evident 

 series of maxillary streaks. Quills dark grayish-brown ; the inner ones and the wing- 

 coverts edged with grayish-white, corresponding with tlie iiattern of the back. Mid- 

 dle pair of tail-feathers like the back ; next two or three pairs blackish ; the outer two 

 pairs mostly or wholly pure white, and the third pair from the outside usually touched 

 with white near the end. 



With the reduction of the gray edgings of the feathers of the upper parts, due to 

 •wearing away during the summer, the bird becomes darker abOve, with narrower and 

 sharper variegation, and the pectoral streaks are fainter. After the fall moult the col- 

 ors again become pure, the streaking of the upper parts is strong and sharp, and the 

 whole under parts acquire much of a ruddy-brown shade. 



