Non-Breeding Birds 125 
decidedly larger than praticola and, though they would not 
allow close-approach (sentinels were posted while the majority 
fed) it is probable that these were O. a. alpestris. On April 24, 
1926, the presence of this subspecies was definitely settled for a 
flock very similar to the earlier (twelve to fifteen individuals) 
allowed a group of us to approach within thirty to fifty feet. 
From that distance there was no question. The birds were 
appreciably larger and darker than praticola and their yellow- 
ish markings about the head (throat, forehead, superciliary 
line), so pronounced that it gave their head a brownish-yellow 
tinge even at one-hundred feet, whereas the impression of 
praticola, especially of males, is that of a generally whitish head, 
the yellow never being apparent until one is extraordinarily 
close and with good binoculars. Furthermore, the black mark- 
ings of these birds seemed less pronounced than in praticola, 
probably through absence of contrasting white. When first we 
started toward them they remained for a moment quiet, but 
shortly were walking about and feeding on the heads of Setaria 
and Amaranthus, indifferent to our presence. 
our observation they passed near a brooding praticola; 
the male of the pair was on the sidewalk near, within twenty feet 
of the strangers. To them he paid not the slightest attention 
though an intruding praticola would have been ousted promptly 
and with vehemence. These Larks, of the same species so far 
as anatomy was concerned, were at that time and that place 
physiologically distinct. No kinship was recognized. 
It is of great interest to speculate by what means ancestral 
history and environment had so modified these two forms, so 
closely related. Here was one, at home in northern Illinois, 
with a physiological cycle that prompted full song and pairing 
in February, nesting in March, renesting in April and with 
young now in the nest at the very time that these, so close north- 
ern relatives, were still roaming over his breeding home, in 
flocks, with no note but a mild ‘‘pseet,”” a month yet from their 
Season of song, a thousand miles from their summer home. 
Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos. Crow. On April 
16 the first crow was seen on the subdivisions, and records are 
frequent for the remainder of April, through May, June and 
July. Families were seen from June 20 on and these groups 
were frequently on the West Subdivision in July. What they 
