86 SHORE LARK. 



environs of Albany Fort in the beginning of May ; but go 

 farther north to breed ; that they feed on grass seeds and buds 

 of the sprig birch, and run into small holes, keeping close to 

 the ground, from whence the natives call them Chi-chup-pi- 

 sue* This same species appears also to be found in Poland, 

 Russia, and Siberia, in winter, from whence they also retire 

 farther north on the approach of spring, except in the north- 

 east parts, and near the high mountains, f 



The length of this bird is seven inches, the extent twelve 

 inches ; the forehead, throat, sides of the neck, and line over 

 the eye are of a delicate straw, or Naples yellow, elegantly re- 

 lieved by a bar of black, that passes from the nostril to the 

 eye, below which it falls, rounding, to the depth of three 

 quarters of an inch ; the yellow on the forehead and over the 

 eye is bounded within, for its whole length, with black, 

 which covers part of the crown ; the breast is ornamented with 

 a broad fan-shaped patch of black: this, as well as all the 

 other spots of black, are marked with minute curves of yellow 

 points ; back of the neck, and towards the shoulders, a light 

 drab tinged with lake ; lesser wing-coverts, bright cinnamon ; 

 greater wing-coverts, the same, interiorly dusky, and tipt 

 with whitish ; back and wings, drab-coloured, tinged with 

 reddish, each feather of the former having a streak of dusky 

 black down its centre ; primaries, deep dusky, tipt and edged 

 with whitish ; exterior feathers, most so ; secondaries, broadly 

 edged with light drab, and scolloped at the tips; tail, forked, 



and Carolina. They frequent sandhills on the seashore, and feed on 

 the seaside oats, or V?iiola paniculata. They have a single note, like 

 the skylark in winter. — Temminck mentions them as birds of passage 

 in Germany, and that they breed also in Asia. One or two specimens 

 have lately been killed in England, so that their geographic range is 

 pretty considerable. The Alauda calandra of Linnaeus is introduced 

 into the " Northern Zoology" as an inhabitant of the Fur countries, on 

 the authority of a specimen in the British Museum, and will stand as 

 the second lark found in that country. — Ed. 



* Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxii. p. 398. 



| Arctic Zoology. 



