162 ALAUDA ALPESTRIS. 



Habits. — As only a very few specimens of this species have 

 been obtained in Britain, I have no original observations to offer 

 respecting its habits. An individual is recorded to have been 

 shot near Sherringham in Norfolk, in March 1830. Mr Eyton 

 states that another has been killed in Lincolnshire ; and Mr 

 Yarrell has " heard of a pair that were obtained together on 

 an extensive down in Kent." According to M. Temminck, 

 the Shore Lark occurs in the north of Europe, Asia, and 

 America, and migrates as far south as some parts of Ger- 

 many. Mr Audubon has given a detailed account of its 

 habits as observed by himself in Labrador, where it breeds 

 on the high granitic tracts along the shores, placing its nest 

 among the moss and lichens, and rearing a brood of four or 

 five. In the beginning of August they unite into small flocks, 

 and in about a month after proceed southward, to return in the 

 beginning of June. The males sing in the air, performing 

 short excursions for the purpose, and sometimes also on the 

 ground. It feeds on insects, minute shell-fish, blossoms, and 

 seeds, and associates with the Brown Pipit. It thus in its 

 habits, as well as its size and proportions, bears a great resem- 

 blance to the Sky Lark, which in winter often associates, in 

 moist or marshy places remaining unfrozen, with the Meadow 

 and Rock Pipits. 



Young. — In their first plumage the young have the bill 

 light reddish-yellow, the feet flesh-coloured, the upper parts 

 dark brown mottled with brownish-yellow, the lower parts 

 pale yellowish- grey, the lower part of the neck anteriorly light 

 reddish-brown mottled with dusky. 



