The Horned Larks 
ous skirtings; yellow throat reduced, paler and duller. Bill and feet lighter. Adult 
female in fall and winter: Still duller, coloring more blended, the crown (at first) almost 
entirely overlaid with grayish brown; the jugular patch further reduced in area and 
skirted with fulvous; the breast washed with dull vinaceous buffy with some admixture 
of dusky; the throat pale dingy yellow. Young, first plumage: Quite different (epitomiz¬ 
ing ancestral history); upperparts, including pileum, chiefly dusky to blackish, sharply 
speckled (on crown, sides of head, and on back) or edged (on scapulars and coverts 
and exposed flight-feathers and rectrices) with white; underparts chiefly white, but 
breast broadly spotted with diffused dusky. Increase of age brings a rapid increase of 
a buffy brown element, which becomes pervasive both as edging and centering of upper- 
parts, and as a wash across breast. Bill dusky at tip, paling basally; feet and tarsi 
pale brown. Length of adult males about 152.4 (6.00); wing 99 (3.90); tail 66 (2.60); 
bill 11 (.43); tarsus 20.8 (.82). Females are somewhat smaller. 
Recognition Marks. —Sparrow size; black patch on chest; black cheek and 
crown-patches; feather tufts or “horns” directed backward, distinctive. Less rufescent 
than 0 . a. rubea; darker than ammophila and leucansiptila; paler and less extensively 
dusky above than strigata and insularis; smaller and more rufescent than merrilli; 
much smaller and ruddier than leucolama. 
Nesting. — Nest: A depression in the ground, heavily lined with grasses, weed- 
stems, and flower-heads, often ornamented on the skirts by a partial pavement of 
mud-flakes, pebbles, cow-chips, etc.; placed in open field in light grass cover or at base 
of weed-clump. Eggs: 3 or 4; grayish white, or pale buffy brown (i. e., washed by pig¬ 
ment), finely and often uniformly sprinkled with buffy brown or drab, occasionally 
wreathed or cloud-capped, with clearer white on little end. Av. of 16 eggs from Kern 
County 21.1 x 15 (.83 x .59). Season: March-June; 2 or 3 broods. 
Range of Otocoris alpestris. —Europe, Asia, northern Africa, North America, and 
northern South America. 
Range of 0 . a. actia (Chiefly contained within California).—Resident in open 
situations west of the Sierran divide, and from the region of San Francisco Bay and 
Stockton south to the coast and northern Lower California. Occurs in the desert 
passes. 
Authorities.—Gambel ( Phileremos cornutus), Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 
2, i., 1847, p. 54 (Calif.); Shufeldt, Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Surv. Terr., vol. vi., 
1881, p. 119, pi. iv. (osteology); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, vol. 2, 1895, p. 341, 
pi. (life hist.; nest and eggs, etc.); Oberholser, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. xxiv., 1902, p. 
845 (orig. desc.; type locality, Jacumba, San Diego Co.); McAtee, U. S. Dept. Agric., 
Biol. Surv. Bull., no. 23, 1905, p. 30, fig. (food); Beal, U. S. Dept. Agric., Biol. Surv. 
Bull., no. 34, 1910, p. 44 (food); Tyler , Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 9, 1913, p. 62 (San 
Joaquin Valley; habits; nesting dates). 
No. 162b Ruddy Horned Lark 
A. O. U. No. 474g. Otocoris alpestris rubea Henshaw. 
Description. —Similar to 0 . a. actia, but more strongly rufescent; vinaceous 
brown of cervix, etc., deeper and ruddier (but still, nearest mikado brown); the wing- 
coverts, especially, more extensively vinaceous; plumage of remaining upperparts 
more blended. The increased ruddiness even more noticeable in female, which is also 
more heavily shaded across breast. Length of male 159 (6.26); female 148 (5.83). 
Range of 0 . a. rubea (Wholly contained within California).—Resident in the 
Sacramento Valley. 
