214 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



they often visit the barnyards, and, if not molested, will become rather 

 tame. They also, at these periods of snow inundation, assemble in the 

 public highways and glean a scanty subsistence from the droppings of 

 horses. Although larks frequently alight on trees, they never, I think, 

 are seen to feed in such places, their food is collected from the ground. 

 In spring the flocks break up and these birds are observed singly or in 

 pairs. Nest building, in this latitude, is begun late in April or early in 

 May. Both sexes engage in constructing their nest, composed of dried 

 grasses, placed on the ground, and most ingeniously concealed in a thick 

 tuft of grass. The nests are built in meadows and grass fields, and fre- 

 quently, though not always, rest in a concavity of the earth. 



The oval white eggs, usually five in number, are spotted with reddish- 

 brown ; they vary considerably in size, but average about 1.16 inches 

 long by .80 of an inch wide. Their food consists of various forms of in- 

 sects, among which may be mentioned beetles, grasshoppers, larvae, 

 earth-worms, ants, etc. The lark, like the Eed-winged Blackbird, is 

 fond of " cut-worms," he also subsists on the seeds of various grasses, 

 weeds, etc., and, according to Mr. Gentry, they sometimes feed on wild 

 cherries, wild strawberries and blackberries. Although this species will 

 sometimes eat the grains of wheat, oats, rye or particles of corn which 

 they find scattered on the ground in fields or other places, they rarely 

 disturb these cereals when growing, and never commit, in grain fields, 

 any depredations at or about the season of harvest. Seventeen Meadow- 

 larks, which I captured (March and April, 1885), in the open pine woods 

 of Florida, were found to have fed only on insects, chiefly beetles. In 

 December, 1886, 1 killed seven of these birds in Chester county, Pa., 

 their stomachs were all gorged with grasshoppers. In the Carolinas, 

 Audubon says, many planters agree in denouncing the lark as a depre- 

 dator, " alleging that it scratches up oat seeds, when sown early in spring, 

 and is fond of plucking up the young corn, wheat, rye or rice." 



GENUS ICTERUS BKISSON. 

 Icterus spurius (LiNN.). 



Orchard Oriole. 



DESCBIPTION (Plate 75). 



Bill slender, very acute and somewhat decurved ; bill and feet bluish-black ; iris 

 brown. 



Adult male. Head and neck all round, upper portion of breast and back, scap- 

 ulars, tail and wings (except middle and lesser coverts, which are chestnut) deep 

 black with slight gloss, particularly about head and throat ; lateral tail feathers 

 with white tips Rest of under parts, lower part of back, upper tail-coverts dark 

 chestnut brown, deepest on breast ; greater wing-coverts black, edged with white, 

 forming a wing-bar : secondaries and sometimes primaries, edged with whitish or 

 pale chestnut. 



Adult female. Above yellowish olive, darkest on back, clearest on head, tail and 

 rump ; below light olive-yellow ; wings dusky, with two bars of white. 



