I^O Bishop, New Birds from North Dakota. [April 



Otocoris alpestris hoyti, new subspecies. Hoyt's Horned 



Lark. 



Subspeciftc characters. — Similar to Otocoris alpestris but with the upper 

 parts generally paler and more gray, the posterior auriculars gray rather 

 than brown, and the yellow of the head and neck replaced by white, ex- 

 cepting the forehead, which is dirty yellowish-white, and the throat, which 

 is distinctly yellow, most pronounced toward the center. 



Type, $ ad. (No. 1447, collection of L. B. Bishop), Cando, Towner 

 County, North Dakota, April 22, 1S95 ; L. B. B. 



Length, 7.35 ; wing, 454; tail, 3.01 ; bill from nostril, .41 ; tarsus, .89. 



The adult female in spring plumage (No. 1529, collection of L. B. Bishop, 

 Rock Lake, Towner County, North Dakota, May 1, 1895) differs in a 

 similar manner from the female of alpestris, but in the female of hoyti the 

 yellow on the throat is much paler than in the male. 



Two forms of Horned Larks are common in Towner County, 

 North Dakota, in April : a small, pale variety most nearly allied 

 to O. a. arenicola, which is already breeding, and a larger, darker 

 bird found in flocks with the Snowflakes and Lapland Longspurs, 

 whose reproductive organs are only slightly enlarged. This latter 

 bird disappears early in May, and is apparently heretofore unde- 

 scribed. From leucolcema it may be separated by the darker upper 

 parts and yellow throat, characters constant in all the specimens 

 I have seen. The black of the malar region is broader than in 

 skins of alpestris, but this difference may not always obtain. In 

 size and color this form is intermediate between alpestris and leu- 

 cokema, or rather between alpestris, which bounds its probable 

 breeding-range on the east, praticola on the southeast, arenicola 

 on the southwest, and leucolcema on the west (cf. Dr. Dwight, 

 Auk, VII, p. 144, line 14 et seq.). It can be distinguished from 

 arenicola by its larger size and darker upper parts, and from 

 praticola chiefly by its size, although in the latter the black mark- 

 ings of the jugulum and malar region are generally if not always 

 more widely separated. 



Ten adult males in breeding plumage from Towner County 

 agree very closely with the type, differing only slightly in the 

 intensity of the yellow on the throat, the purity of the white on 

 the forehe.td, and the extent and prominence of the dark mark- 

 ings on the posterior part of the breast. One bird shows an 



