MEADOW LARK. 3 t 1 



MEADOW LARK. (Alauda magna.) 



PLATE XIX.— Fig. 2. 



Linn. Syst. 289. — Crescent Stare, Arct. Zool. 330, No. 192. — Lath. iii. 6, var. A. — 

 Le Fer-a-cheval, ou Merle a collier d Amerique, Buff. iii. p. 371. — Catesb. Car. 

 i. pi. ZZ.—Bartram, p. 290.— Peak's Museum, No. 5212. 



STURNELLA LUDOVLCIANA.—SwAmsOK* 



Sturnus Ludovicianus (subgenus Sturnella), Bonap. Synop. p. 49. — Sturnella 

 collaris, Vieill. Gal. des Ois. pi. 80. — Sturnella Ludoviciana, North. Zool. ii. 

 p. 282. 



Though this well-known species cannot boast of the powers 

 of song which distinguish that " harbinger of day," the sky- 

 lark of Europe, yet in richness of plumage, as well as in 

 sweetness of voice (as far as his few notes extend), he stands 

 eminently its superior. He differs from the greater part of 

 his tribe in wanting the long, straight hind claw, which is 

 probably the reason why he has been classed, by some late 

 naturalists, with the starlings. But in the particular form of 



* In changing the specific name of this species, C. L. Bonaparte thinks 

 that Wilson must have been misled by some European author, as he was 

 acquainted with the works wherein it was previously described. It 

 ought to remain under the appellation bestowed on it by Linnseus, Brisson, 

 &c. With regard to the generic term, this curious form has been chosen 

 by Vieillot as the type of his genus Sturnella, containing yet only two 

 species, — that of Wilson, and another from the southern continent. The 

 form is peculiar to the New World, and seems to have been a subject of 

 uncertainty to most ornithologists, as we find it placed in the genera 

 Turdus, Sturnus, Alauda, and Cassicus, to all of which it is somewhat 

 allied, but to none can it rank as a congener. In the bill, head, and 

 wings, with some modification, we have the forms of the two first and 

 last ; in the colours of the plumage, the elongation of the scapularies, 

 and tail-coverts, in the legs, feet, and binder claw, that of the Alaudce. 

 The tarsi and feet are decidedly ambulatorial, as is confirmed by the 

 habits of the species, though the tail indicates that of a scansorial bird ; 

 but as far as we yet know, it is the only indication of this power. In 

 the structure of the nest, we have the weaving of the Icteri, the situation 

 of many of the warblers, and the form of the true wrens. — Ed. 



