CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 399 



month. {A. L. Garneau.) This bird nests on Toronto island and 

 on Toronto sand-bar at Ashbridge bay, seldom having eggs, before 

 the middle of May, as the instances when shore larks nests have 

 been found here at the end of March and first week of April, while 

 snow was on the ground, have proved to be the eggs of alpestris and 

 not praticola. This variety of horned lark breeds commonly in 

 Manitoba. In northwestern Saskatchewan and Alberta it is replaced 

 by the pallid horned lark. {W. Raine.) At Ottawa this bird builds 

 in a shallow hole in the ground. The nest is composed of grass and 

 lined with fine grass, horse hair and feathers. Eggs four or five. 

 Greyish white, marked with spots of brownish purple. (G. R- 

 White.) 



Further accounts of the breeding habits of this bird will be found 

 in The Ottawa Naturalist, Vol. XIV, p. 23, XVI, p. 226 and XX, 

 p. 40. 



474c. Desert Horned Lark. 



Otocoris alpestris leucolaema (Coues.) 



In summer from latitude 49° north on the eastern side of the 

 Rocky mountains into Alberta. Non-breeding birds have been 

 examined from Calgary, Alberta, and from Medicine Hat, Sas- 

 katchewan. (Oberholser.) 



In the writer's trip across the prairie this form was found every- 

 where on the prairie south of lat. 50° from the looth meridian to 

 the 114th at the base of the Rocky mountains. Our northern 

 specimens are three from Indian Head, Sask., taken between April 

 7th and 12th, 1892; four others from Medicine Hat, taken between 

 April 6th and May 2nd, 1894. On the prairie south of the line of 

 the Canadian Pacific Railway this species with McCown's bunting 

 and the chestnut-collared bunting were extremely common and 

 constantly flocked together. (Macoun.) 



Breeding Notes. — The horned lark is one of the species which, 

 in this latitude, usually rears at least two broods each season — a 

 fact which in part accounts for the preponderance of individuals 

 over those of the species with which they are associated. I have 

 already adverted to the extremely early nesting-time which has 

 been ascertained and have only to add that the period of repro- 



