HORNED LARK. 295 



vations of Temminck, they are unknown to the south of Ger- 

 many, Pallas met with these birds round Lake Baikal and on 

 the Volga, in the 53d degree of latitude. Westward they have 

 also been seen in the interior of the United States, along the 

 shores of the Missouri. 



They arrive in the Northern and Middle States late in the 

 fall or commencement of winter. In New England they are 

 seen early in October, and disappear generally on the approach 

 of the deep storms of snow, though straggling parties are still 

 found nearly throughout the winter. In the other States to 

 the South they are more common at this season, and are par- 

 ticularly numerous in South Carolina and Georgia, frequenting 

 open plains, old fields, common grounds, and the dry shores 

 and banks of bays and rivers, keeping constantly on the 

 ground, and roving about in families under the guidance of the 

 older birds, who, watching for any approaching danger, give 

 the alarm to the young in a plaintive call very similar to that 

 which is uttered by the Skylark in the same circumstances. 

 Inseparable in all their movements, like the hen and her fos- 

 tered chickens, they roost together in a close ring or com- 

 pany, by the mere edge of some sheltering weed or tuft of 

 grass on the dry and gravelly ground, and thickly and warmly 

 clad, they abide the frost and the storm with hardy indiffe- 

 rence. They fly rather high and loose, in scattered companies, 

 and follow no regular time of migration, but move onward only 

 as their present resources begin to fail. They are usually fat, 

 esteemed as food, and are frequently seen exposed for sale in 

 our markets. Their diet, as usual, consists of various kinds of 

 seeds which still remain on the grass and weeds they frequent, 

 and they swallow a considerable portion of gravel to assist 

 their digestion. They also collect the eggs and dormant 

 larvse of insects when they fall in their way. About the middle 

 of March they retire to the North, and are seen about the 

 beginning of May round Hudson Bay, after which they are 

 no more observed till the return of autumn. They arrive in 

 the fur countries along with the Lapland Buntings, with which 

 they associate ; and being more shy, act the sentinel usually to 



