NORTHERN HORNED LARK 327 



Milhui as far north as Okak. We found a few pairs of these larks 

 scattered all along the coast, but more commonly from Battle Harbor 

 to Nain, wherever they could find the open and exposed situations 

 that they like on the treeless coastal strip or on the rocky, moss- 

 covered tops of the numerous islands. They seem to prefer the 

 barren hilltops, where large beds of reindeer moss or other lichens 

 of various colors partially cover the rocks and tundra and where 

 there are no trees except the diminutive dwarf willows and birches, 

 which grow only a few inches high and spread out over the ground, 

 prostrated by the Arctic gales. 



Spring. — Most of the wintering flocks of horned larks leave New 

 England before the end of April, though a few may linger well into 

 May. We found a few small migrating flocks at Esquimaux Point, 

 Quebec, on May 28, but by June 2 they had left. Lucien M. 

 Turner says in his unpublished notes that in the vicinity of Fort 

 Chimo, Ungava, "these birds are common in the spring migration 

 only, arriving just after the middle of May"; but he found them 

 breeding later on near the mouth of the Koksoak River. Taverner 

 and Sutton (1934) found alpestHs migrating in company with hoyti 

 on May 28 at Churchill on the west coast of Hudson Bay. Dr. 

 Sutton (1932) collected two from a flock of five males on South- 

 ampton Island on May 19, which were evidently migrating; he 

 thought that aXpestris occurs on this island only as a migrant, hoyti 

 being the breeding form there. Some of J. D. Soper's birds, col- 

 lected on Baffin Island, seemed to him to be referable to alpestris, 

 though Mr. Soper (1928) says that the "great majority" of the 

 breeding birds are typical of hoyti. Evidently these two races 

 mingle on migration and probably intergrade in the regions north 

 of Hudson Bay. 



Courtship. — I saw the courtship flight song of the male when I 

 was in Labrador, but, as I could not hear it very well, I prefer to 

 quote Dr. Townsend's (Townsend and Allen, 1907) excellent account 

 of it: 



The bird suddenly mounts high into the air, going up silently in irregular 

 circles, at times climbing nearly vertically, to such a height that he appears 

 but a little speck in the sky, several hundred feet up. Arrived at this eminence 

 he spreads his wings and soars, emitting meanwhile his song, such as it is — 

 one or two preliminary notes and then a series of squeaks and high notes with 

 a bit of a fine trill. The whole has a jingling metallic sound like distant 

 sleigh bells, although the squeaks remind one strongly of an old gate. The 

 whole effect, however, is not unpleasant, — even melodious. Having finished 

 one bar of his song, he fiaps his wings a few times, closes them and sails 

 again, repeating the song. One bird repeated his song twenty-four times and 

 remained in the air one and a half minutes; another remained in the air 

 three minutes, during which he repeated his song thirty-two times. During 

 all this time the bird is fiying in curves or irregular circles, sometimes in 



