ANDERSON — THE BIRDS OF IOWA. 29 1 



bago the Least Flycatcher is an abundant summer resident, nest- 

 ing ahnost anywhere, in trees along the roadside or in artificial 

 groves near houses, sometimes in open woods, seldom more than 

 fifteen feet from the ground. Four creamy-white unspotted eggs 

 are laid about the middle of June, approximately a week before 

 trailli. The birds are very tame and can frequently be caught 

 by hand while on the nest. 



Suborder OSCINES. Singing Birds. 

 Family ALAUDID^. Larks. 



The Horned Larks are the only representatives of their family 

 found in America. There are about one hundred Old World spe- 

 cies, of which the Skylark is the best known. They are almost 

 strictly terrestrial and are sweet singers in the springtime. 



Genus Otocoris Bonaparte. 



294. (474). Otocoris alpestris alpestris (Linn.). Horned Lark. 



The Horned Lark question has become so complicated of recent 

 years by the differentiation of varieties that most of the records 

 are confused. It is clear that the Prairie Horned Lark is the 

 common resident and breeding variety in Iowa, while O. a. alpes- 

 tris occurs in winter as a straggler from the northeast and O. a. 

 //^j'^/ from the northwest. The range of the large, dark-colored 

 alpestris is given by Oberholser (Proc. U. S. N. M., xxiv, 1902, 

 pp. 807-10) " in winter west to Manitoba and the Mi.ssissippi Val- 

 ley, south regularly to Illinois, Ohio and the Carolinas, casually 

 to Louisiana" [specimens from Hibbing, Minn., Mt. Carmel, 

 Maywood, Cook County, 111., etc.]- Kumlien and Hollister state 

 that in Wisconsin it is " found on the prairies during winter, oft- 

 times in considerable numbers. ... It does not occur anywhere, 

 under our observation, except on the larger prairies, while p7'ati- 

 cola is found in almost any field or pasture, even when quite small 

 and surrounded by woods " (Bds. of Wis., 1903, p. 83). " A sin- 

 gle specimen, taken at Lincoln, has been identified by Oberholser 

 as typical alpestris. This record extends the known winter rec- 

 ord of this species considerably westward " (Rev. Bds. Neb., 1904, 

 p. 69). 



The early Iowa records listed all the Horned Larks as alpestris, 

 and it is questionable whether many of the later winter records 



