188 On the East- Asiatic Shore-Lark. 



tent to allow difference of size to be regarded as an indi- 

 vidual peculiarity. 



The Common or Arctic Shore-Lark is a circumpolar bird, 

 being found on the arctic prairies of America, as well as on 

 the fjelds of Lapland and the tundra of Siberia. Two other 

 species or subspecies of Shore-Larks occur in the American 

 continent ; but I have not been able to see a large enough 

 series to speak positively concerning them. So far as I am 

 able to judge, Dresser's treatment of the American Shore- 

 Larks is quite as careless as his work on the Asiatic species 

 of this group. He represents O. alpestris as breeding 

 throughout North America, the only other American species 

 in his opinion being O. peregrina from Bogota. Both these 

 statements appear to me to be entirely wrong, and contrary 

 to the evidence so carefully collected by Messrs. Baird, 

 Brewer, and Ridgway. It appears to me that, in addition to 

 O. alpestris, which breeds in the arctic regions of both 

 continents, probably never below the limits of forest-growth, 

 there is on the American continent a southern form, O. occi- 

 dentalis, breeding on the plains of the upper valley of the 

 Mississippi and the valley of the Missouri, which, like O. 

 longirostris, has the throat white instead of yellow. The 

 alleged intermediate forms between it and its southern ally 

 I imagine to be either birds of the year of the southern 

 species or faded summer examples of the northern species. 

 In what respect O. occidentalis differs from O. longirostris I 

 am unable to say. The third American species is 0. chry- 

 solcema (of which O. peregrina is doubtless a synonym) . This 

 bird is a tropical form of O. alpestris, and is a resident in 

 Mexico and some of the adjoining United States, its range 

 extending southwards into the extreme north-west of South 

 America. It is said to differ from its arctic ally in being 

 smaller and richer in colour, the yellow on the throat being 

 even more brilliant than in the arctic species. 



