ALAUDID^ EREMOPHILA ALPESTRIS, HOENED LARK. 37 



Though inhabiting the same situations as the preceding species, the 

 Short-billed Marsh Wren is not only much rarer, but much more re- 

 stricted geographically. It occurs along the whole Atlantic coast, from 

 Florida to Massachusetts, lt)eyond which I have observed no record, but 

 according to my experience it is nowhere abundant along this line. In 

 the course of several years collecting in Maryland, Virginia, and the 

 Carolinas, I never happened to find but a single specimen, which I shot 

 in October, in a marsh on the North Carolina coast, where the other 

 species was abundant at the time. According to various authors, the 

 bird is more common in Massachusetts during the summer, arriving 

 about the second week in May, and leaving in October. I think the 

 birds are more plentiful along an interior line of migration, up the Mis- 

 sissippi. Thus Mr. Trippe found them "abundant" and breeding in 

 Minnesota, and I saw them in comparative plenty along the Eed Eiver, 

 about Pembina, securing several examples in June. I found them in 

 reedy sloughs on the prairie, where the Yellow-headed Blackbirds and 

 Black Terns were breseding, and also in low sedgy tracts, partly covered 

 with a growth of scrubby willows. Dr. Hayden's specimen is interest- 

 ing as being the westernmost on record for the United States. Audu- 

 bon found the species abundant in Texas, where it breeds. 



Quite contrary to what might have been expected, the eggs of this 

 species are entirely unlike those of its allies, being pure white, unmarked. 

 They measure 0.63 by 0.-18, being thus rather elongate. I never saw a 

 nest ; it is said to be similar to that of the Long-billed Wren — a hollow 

 globe with a hole in one side, woven of grasses, reeds or rushes, lined 

 with finer material of the same kind, and placed in a tuft of reeds or 

 tussock of grass. According to Mr. Maynard, the birds are quite noisy in 

 the fresh-water marshes of Massachusetts, frequently singing all night: 

 "Their notes are not fine, but, although monotonous, are more elaborate 

 than those of the Long-billed, and better entitled to the name of song." 



Family ALAUDID^ : Larks. 



The birds of this family differ remarkahly from other Oscines in the structure of the 

 tarsal envelope, which, Instead of consisting on the sides of the tarsus of two undi- 

 vided plates meeting iu a sharp ridge behind, is there formed of a series of scutellse 

 lite those iu front, lapping round behind, meeting those of the front in a groove on 

 both, inner and outer faces of the tarsus. Tlie back of the tarsus is therefore blunt and 

 rounded in the front. Notwithstanding this peculiarity, they are truly Oscine, having 

 the musical apparatus well developed, and being good songsters. The tarsal envelope, 

 while approaching that of the Clamatorial birds in character, is not, however, the same 

 as in these, in which a single series of plates, variously arranged, encircles the tarsus, 

 meeting iu a groove along the inner face, but being continuous on the outer. In the 

 Larks, the hind claw is elongated and straightened conformably with their terrestrial 

 habits ; the bill is conic-elongate, and there are but nine fully-developed primaries. In 

 the genus Eremophila there is a peculiar tuft of feathers springing from each side of the 

 head back of the eye, somewhat similar in character to the so-called "horns " of many 

 owls. The species inhabit open grounds, and are gregarious and extensively migratory 

 in most regions. Their food consists of various seeds and insects. We have but a sin- 

 gle species, identical with that of the Old World ; but it runs into several geographical 

 varieties. 



EEEMOPHILA ALPESTRIS, (Forst.) Boie. 



Horned lark; Shore lark. 



a. alpestris. 



Alauda alpeatris, Forst., Phil. Trans. Ixii, 1779, 398.— Linx., S. N. i, 1766, 289.— Gm., S. 

 N. i, 1788, 800.— Lath., Ind. Orn. ii, 1790, 498.— And of earlier authors gener- 



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