226 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS EGGS. 



LARKS. Family ALAUDID/E. 



[473.] Skylark. A lauda arvensis. 

 Range. Old World, straggling casually to Greenland and Bermuda. 



This noted foreigner has been imported and liberated a num- 

 ber of times in this country, but apparently is not able to thrive 

 here, a fact which will not cause much regret when we remem- 

 ber the experiment with the English Sparrow. They are 

 abundant in Europe and Great Britain where they nest on the 

 ground in cultivated fields or meadows, laying from three to 

 [Grayish.] five grayish eggs, marked with brown, drab and lavender. 



474. Horned Lark. Otocoris alpestris. 



Range. Eastern North America, breeding in Labrador and about Hudson 

 Bay; winters in eastern United States south to Carolina. 



This variety of this much sub-divided species is 7.5 inches in length, has 

 brownish gray upper parts and is white below with black patches on the breast 

 and below the eye, yellowish throat and small black ear tufts. The various sub- 

 species are all marked alike, their distinction being based upon slight differences 

 in size, variations in the shade of the back, or the greater or less intensity of the 

 yellowish throat and superciliary stripe. The nesting habits of all the varieties 

 are the same and the eggs differ only in the shade of the ground color, this vari- 

 ation among the eggs of the same variety being so great that an egg cannot be 

 identified without knowing the locality in which it was taken. The present va- 

 riety build their nests on the ground generally under tufts of grass or in hollows 

 in the moss which is found in their breeding range, making them of dried 

 grasses and generally lining them with feathers. The eggs are grayish with a 

 slight greenish tinge, and are specked and spotted over the whole surface with 

 drab, brownish and dark lavender. The eggs of this and the next variety average 

 considerably larger than those of the more southerly distributed varieties; size 

 .92 x .65. 



474a. Pallid Horned Lark. 0. a. arcticola. 



Range. Breeds in Alaska and winters south to Oregon and Montana. 



This is the largest of the Horned Larks and has the throat white, with no 

 trace of yellow. Its nest is built in similar locations and the eggs are like those 

 of the preceding species. 



474b. Prairie Horned Lark. 0. a. praticola. 



Range. Breeds in the Mississippi Valley from Illinois north to Manitoba and 

 east to the Middle States; winters south to Carolina and Texas. 



This sub-species is considerably smaller than the Horned 

 Lark, and the throat is paler yellow, while the line over the 

 eye and the forehead is white. They are the most abundant 

 and have the most extended range of any of the better known 

 species. In the Mississippi Valley, where they are of the most 

 common of the nesting birds, they build on the ground in 

 meadows or cultivated fields, and very often in cornfields; the 

 nests are made of grasses and lined with horse hairs or feathers, and placed in 

 slight hollows generally under a tuft of grass or sods. They raise two broods a 

 season and sometimes three, laying the first set of eggs in March and another in 

 June or July. The three or four eggs have an olive buff ground color and are 

 thickly sprinkled with drab and lavender; size .83 x .60. 



[Olive buff.] 



