DUSKY HORNED LARK 359 



as "larger, more broadly streaked above, and blacker than strigata, 

 with less yellow about the head and throat, the nape pinker.* * * 

 This is the blackest-backed of all the races, the dark brown of stri- 

 gata having a decidedly yellowish shade, particularly in autumn 

 specimens, whereas merAlli is black-brown in spring and strikingly 

 grayish and streaked in autumn." 



Its breeding range lies chiefly in the Transition Zone from south- 

 ern British Columbia, through Washington and Oregon east of the 

 Cascades, and from extreme northern Idaho to northeastern Cali- 

 fornia and northwestern Nevada. 



Major Bendire (1895) says of its haunts: "This subspecies is es- 

 sentially a bird of the foothills (the so-called 'bunch grass country,' 

 Festuca sp.?) as well as of the more open and grass-covered valleys 

 and plains occasionally found in the mountains, while it is either rare 

 or entirely absent in the more arid sagebrush plains found inter- 

 spersed through the same regions." 



Dr. "Walter P. Taylor (1912) says that, in northern Nevada, these 

 "horned larks exhibit a very marked preference for the vicinity of 

 the fields and dry meadows, as along Quinn River. The birds were 

 frequently encountered, however, on the most inhospitable deserts, 

 although they were more numerous in pleasanter surroundings. We 

 did not observe them at a greater altitude than 7000 feet, although 

 Ridgway noted them as high as 11,000 feet." 



Referring to the Lassen Peak region in California, Grinnell, 

 Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write: "Horned larks in the eastern 

 part of the section were seen on ground where the cover of vegeta- 

 tion was slight. The birds frequented both cultivated land and 

 unbroken land. Areas of sandy as well as hard ground were foraged 

 over. * * * Single birds were sometimes seen perched in the 

 tops of sage bushes. On July 25, 1928, * * * many horned 

 larks were seen among small and scattered sage bushes. During the 

 hot mid-day hours the birds sought shade beneath these small 

 bushes." 



Nesting. — C. E. McBee (1931) has found the dusky horned lark 

 nesting very abundantly on the grassy plateau and on the cultivated 

 lands about his ranch in Benton County, Wash. He gives an ex- 

 cellent description of the nests, which I quote: 



The nests of the larks are built in a cup-shaped hollow scratched out by 

 the birds, with the top of the nest even with the level of the ground. They 

 are composed of various kinds of vegetable material ; sometimes small rootlets, 

 pliable twigs, or pieces of a soft kind of plant which grows on the plateau, 

 but more often a good share of the nest is made up of the thin coverings of 

 wheat stubble and pieces of grass. In only two instances has the writer found 

 any evidence of animal material; these were both small pieces of rabbit fur 

 used as lining. The birds place the nests in the shelter of a clod, small plant, 

 or bunch of stubble. The prevailing spring winds are from the southwest and 



