History 5 
and Ridgway (1874) in speaking of the Horned Larks say: 
“‘starting with North America north of the United States we 
begin with a style absolutely indistinguishable from that of 
Europe, this, to which the name cornuta belongs, visits the 
Eastern States only in winter, but breeds over the prairie region 
of Wisconsin, Illinois and westward.’’ These authors believed 
thus that cornuta included also what came to be praticola, though 
they remark at the peculiar breeding distribution. 
The first suggestion that the Horned Lark breeding east of 
the Mississippi is not the same as OQ. a. alpestris of the Atlantic 
coast came from Allen and Brewster (1882) who suggested that 
it is nearer Leucolaema Coues than the former. Two years later 
Henshaw (1884) erected the subspecies Otocoris alpestris prati- 
cola and gave as the range the upper Mississippi Valley and 
region of the Great Lakes. 
Extension of Range—Partly as a result of the stimulus that 
followed the erection of a new subspecies in one of the most 
thoroughly worked ornithological regions and partly due to an 
actual extension of range of O. a. praticola, there appeared forth- 
with an extensive list of published notes of the occurrence of 
this form where previously it had not been thought to exist or 
had not been separated as distinct from O. a. alpestris. 
However a few years prior to the distinction of the Prairie 
Horned Lark as a separate subspecies there are two or three 
references to a Horned Lark breeding in New York and Ontario 
that was, undoubtedly, this subspecies though not at the time 
recognized as differing from O. a. alpestris. The earliest of these 
appears to be that of McIlwraith to whom Coues (1874) refers 
as giving information of Larks breeding about Hamilton, Canada 
West (western end of Lake Ontario). The earliest publication 
by Mcllwraith in this regard that has been located is that of 
his 1883 ‘Bird Notes from Western Canada”’: ‘Getting out- 
side of the city we at once lost sight of Passer domesticus, who 
has not yet betaken himself to the farm houses, but almost 
immediately met with another recent addition to our birds which 
promises ere long to be as abundant in the country as the Spar- 
row is in the city. This is Eremophila alpestris, Shore Lark. 
When I first made the acquaintance of this species twenty years 
ago [italics mine], the few individuals observed came and went 
with the snowbirds, and kept along with them while here. They 
