610 ALAUDID^E. 



visits. It is found throughout the greater part of European 

 Kussia, but not very commonly, and it has not been recorded 

 from the Crimea, though it reaches Bessarabia, and Mr. 

 Robson, according to Messrs. Elwes and Buckley, has met 

 with it on the hills near Constantinople. It seems to in- 

 habit the whole temperate zone of Siberia from the Ural to 

 Kamchatka occurring also in the Kurile Islands but not in 

 Japan though it has been obtained in North China. 



In the New World are found two if not three races of this 

 bird, which have been described as constituting so many 

 species, but the most recent transatlantic authority regards 

 them in the former light. Trusting then to the determina- 

 tion of Prof. Baird in his latest work (North American Birds, 

 ii. pp. 140-144), we may consider these races specifically 

 identical with our own Shore-Lark, and there is no need to 

 enter into any details as to the differences of the typical 

 Otocorys alpestris, which is found in the arctic and subarctic 

 portions of America, of the O. occidentalis of its interior 

 northern prairies, and of the 0. chrysolcema of the more 

 southern plains, the table-lands of Mexico and the moun- 

 tain-chains of New Granada*. Whether indeed this bird 

 breeds so near the equator as the countries last named does 

 not yet appear the fact is sufficiently surprising that it 

 should do so from Arizona to British Columbia on the west 

 and to Labrador on the east, though it must be understood 

 that the wooded and cultivated tracts intervening in each 

 case are to be excepted. The Shore-Lark has apparently 

 not so high a northern range in America as in Europe : a 

 single example only was obtained by Mr. Dall at Fort Yukon 

 (lat. 66) while but three were seen by Ross at Felix Har- 

 bour (lat. 70'), and a solitary specimen has been recorded 

 from Greenland. 



Pursuing our bird in North America, Richardson says 

 that it " arrives in the fur countries along with the Lapland 

 Bunting, with which it associates, and, being a shyer bird, 



* The southward extension of Otocorys here as well as in the Old World will 

 perhaps some day be recognized l>y geologists among the proofs of the former 

 prevalence of a glacial epoch. 



