1602 THE PERCHING BIRDS 



bunting. It often remains some time in the air and sings its little song several 

 times over before it descends. It will also sing from the roof of the wooden houses. 

 Its call note is loud and clear, but scarcely capable of being expressed by a word. 

 In Lapland the shore lark lays its eggs from the middle of May to the middle of 

 June, but in Siberia not before the latter date. The nest is always built on the 

 ground, generally in some slight hollow. I found one in Finmark in the middle of 

 a mountain pass, in the hollow formed by the foot of a horse in the soft mud which 

 the sun had afterwards hardened. Others were among stones on the bare ground, 

 and one under the shelter of some rushes in the grass. The nest is loosely made of 

 dry grass and stalks, and the inside, which is rather deep, is lined with willow down 

 or reindeer hair. Four is the usual number of eggs, but very often only three are 

 laid, and sometimes as many as five. They may be said to be characteristic larks' 

 eggs, and only differ from those of the skylark by their more olive shade of color. 

 The ground color is a pale greenish or paie brownish white, often so colored by the 

 profusion of markings as to be scarcely visible. The overlying spots are small and 

 irregular in shape, of an almost neutral brown color, and nearly conceal the paler 

 and grayer underlying spots." The adult male shore lark in breeding plumage has 

 the forehead, and a stripe over each eye, the chin, and upper throat pale yellow; the 

 crown, and tufts of the head, the lores, and a band across the lower neck are black; 

 the upper parts are vinaceous brown, and the tinder parts dirty white. The female 

 is similar, but all her colors are duller, a remark which applies to the bird of the 

 year. In winter plumage the shore lark lacks the ruddy vinaceous tinting charac- 

 terizing the breeding plumage. The intensity of the latter is obtained by a change 

 in the actual color of the feather itself, and is not produced by a molt. The young 

 have the whole of the upper plumage dark brown spotted with dull yellow; the 

 throat being pale yellow streaked with black; the lower parts are dull white. 



WAGTAILS AND PIPITS 

 Family MOTACILLID/E 



The members of this family are a group of slender- bodied birds, possessing 

 among their common features a slender bill adapted to an insectivorous diet, a wing 

 composed of nine primaries, long slender feet, and a long tail generally about equal 

 in length to the wing. The wagtails are distinguished from the pipits by their pro- 

 portionately longer tails, and also by their gay colors, in which yellow usually pre- 

 dominates; they are migratory, and perform long and arduous journeys to and from 

 their breeding grounds. The wagtails and pipits are chiefly inhabitants of the Old 

 World, especially the northern portions of Europe and Asia, being represented in 

 North America by two species found in Alaska, but not in the eastern portions of 

 that continent. 



The white wagtail and its congeners are small, elegantly-shaped 



birds; all in the habit of running over grass in pursuit of insects. The 



bill is slender, nearly straight, and very slightly notched at the tip; while the wings 



