SHORE LARK. 467 



Wilson says the Shore Lark visits the United States in 

 winter, going as far south as Georgia. Mr. Audubon says, 

 these birds in severe weather are seen in Massachusetts as 

 early as October : but seldom proceed on the Atlantic side 

 beyond Maryland, or the lower parts of Kentucky, west of 

 the Alleghany Mountains, and he saw but one in Louisiana. 

 Pennant, in his Arctic Zoology, states that in very severe 

 weather these birds reach Virginia and Carolina. Mr. Bul- 

 lock found them on the table-land of Mexico. 



Pursuing our bird in North America, Sir John Richard- 

 son says, that it " arrives in the fur-countries along with 

 the Lapland Bunting, with which it associates, and being 

 a shyer bird, is the sentinel, and alarms the flock on 

 the approach of danger. It retires to the marshy and 

 woody eastern districts to breed, extending its range to 

 the shores of the Arctic Sea. Mr. Hutchins states that its 

 nest is placed on the ground, and that it lays four or five 

 white eggs, spotted with black." They appear on the 

 shores of Hudson's Bay in May, and proceed from thence 

 still further north to breed. We are indebted to Mr. 

 Audubon for the best account of the habits of this bird 

 during summer, the most interesting period of its existence. 

 In one of those arduous voyages which this indefatigable 

 naturalist undertook to complete his Ornithological Bio- 

 graphy of North America, this bird was found on the 

 shores of the coast of Labrador, and its various peculi- 

 arities are thus described : * 



" Although in the course of our previous rambles along 

 the coast of Labrador, and among the numberless islands 

 that guard its shores, I had already seen this Lark while 

 breeding, never before that day did I so much enjoy its 

 song, and never before I reached this singular spot, had I 

 to add to my pleasures that of finding its nest. Here I 

 * Ornithological Biography, vol. ii. p. 570. 



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