180 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



1881, two birds were killed by Col. N. S. Goss in the bottomland 

 of the Neosho River near Neosho Falls, Kan., fifty miles west of 

 our state line. 



*552. Chondestes GRAMMACUS (Say). Lark Sparrow. 



Fringilla grammaca. Chondestes grammica. Emberiza grammaca. 



Geog. Dist. — Mississippi Valley, east of the Plains; north to 

 eastern Minnesota, Wisconsin, southern Michigan; east to Ohio, 

 Kentucky, Tennessee; casually to the Atlantic States and 

 Florida. Breeds from eastern Texas northward and winters 

 south of United States. Replaced westward to the Pacific by 

 subspecies strigatus (Swainson). 



In Missouri nowhere common, but one of our most generally 

 distributed summer residents, not only in the prairie region but, 

 on cultivated land everywhere, even in the narrow valleys of 

 the Ozarks. There are a few unusually early dates as April 6, 

 1884, Fayette; April 10, 1898, Independence and April 10, 1892, 

 Keokuk, but as a rule the Lark Sparrows arrive in most parts of 

 Missouri with great regularity during the third w^ek of April 

 only in the most northern counties a few days later. They are 

 prominent songsters and conspicuous birds, often seen on wagon 

 roads taking dust baths. After the young are grown a few fam- 

 ilies gather in a troop, and begin to roam, disappearing from their 

 breeding stands as early as July or August. Small flocks are 

 met with until late in September, and some observers report 

 the "last seen" as late as October 4, 1903, New Haven and 

 October 17, 1883, and 1885, Mt. Carmel — exceptional cases. 



553. ZoNOTRiCHiA QUERULA (Nuttall). Harris's Sparrow. 



Fringilla querula. Fringilla harrisii. Fringilla comata. Hooded Sparrow. 



Geog. Dist. — Interior plains of North America, from eastern 

 base of Rocky Mountains to Western Missouri, Iowa, ,Minnesota, 

 Manitoba, occasionally to Illinois and Wisconsin. Breeds north 

 of United States (Assiniboia) and winters in Texas. 



Western Missouri with eastern Kansas and eastern Nebraska, 

 is the main thoroughfare of this species from its summer home 

 in Assiniboia to its winter home in the Indian Territory and 

 northern Texas. All early explorers met with it ; in 1832 Prince 

 of Wied, who described it later under the name of F. comata; 

 Nuttall and Townsend, who discovered it near Kansas City (In- 



