260 Merrill 011 Birds of For f Klamath, Oregon. LJ"')' 



under, a raised clod of earth; a low weed concealed it from above, and it 

 was admirably hidden ; the rim was tiush with the surface of the ground, 

 and in composition and construction it was like Montana nests oiaretiicola, 

 but was perhaps rather deeper than the average of these. 



On June 17 another nest was found after much search in the meadow 

 in front of the Fort; * it was placed under a weed growing on a wide, but 

 low mound, deeply sunken in the earth, and contained three young about 

 five days old, which were covered with a brownish yellow down. Four 

 days later I again visited this nest, but one of the young had disappeared; 

 the feathers of the remaining two were quite well developed and were 

 blackish, widely edged with white, and as these colors were about equal 

 in extent the young presented a peculiar marbled appearance ; on the 

 crown the light tips to the feathers were triangular in shape. On June 

 25 these young had abandoned the nest, but after some search I found one 

 of them on bai-e ground about one hundred yards away. On July 1 I shot 

 both parents and the other young, a male, now about nineteen days old and 

 fully grown, Hying as well as its parents. It is of interest to note that 

 this female contained two eggs, one of which was almost ready for extru- 

 sion, and she had apparently just laid an egg. 



There seems to be a good deal of uncertainty as to the number of eggs 

 usually laid by the Shore Lark. Though unable to look the matter up 

 thoroughly as I write this, it may be noted that Baird, Brewer and Ridg- 

 way merely quote Audubon's statement that four or five eggs are laid ; 

 that Dr. Coues, in 'Birds of the North West' and 'Birds of the Colorado 

 Valley,' says nothing as to the number; in the latest edition of the 'Key,' 

 that four or five are laid ; and that Mr. Ridgway in his 'Manual' says three 

 to five. My own experience, mostly with the arentcola form in Montana, 

 is that three eggs constitute a full set though four are not infrequently 

 found. 



{Toung, Jirsi plumage {$ Fort Klamath, July i, 1887, J. C. Merrill, 

 M. D. No. 695). Above brownish black, the exposed surface of the closed 

 wings bright hair-brown; entire upper surface conspicuously variegated 

 with white or soiled white markings, those of the nape fine flecks, of the 

 top of head sharply defined deltoid spots, of the back, scapulars, wing- 

 coverts, and rump broad terminal bars; wing quills tipped with white and 

 bordered along the outer webs with sandy buff; tail with the middle 

 pair of feathers sandy brown, the others dull black, all the tail-feathers 

 tipped and edged outwardly with white, this edging broadest, embracing 

 most of the outer edge, on the outer pair of feathers; underparts soiled 

 white, the cheeks and jugulum flecked with dusky, the breast and sides 

 obscurely spotted with dull black, the remaining under surface immacu- 

 late. Dr. Merrill's series includes eight specimens in unmixed first plu- 

 mage; of them, two are essentially similar to the bird just described and 

 with it are easily separable from the corresponding stage of O. a. praticola 



* The parents were one of the few pairs that were observed in the valley in dry open 

 ground ; but only in the colony near the marsh above referred to, and which a circle 

 of about a mile in diameterwould enclose, were the Larks at all common. 



