22 



MEADOW LARK. 



same materials, disposed with great regularity. The eggs are 

 four, sometimes five/ white, marked with speeks and several large 

 blotches of reddish brown, chiefly at the thick end. Their food 

 consists of caterpillars, grub worms, beetles, and grass seeds ; with 

 a considerable proportion of gravel. Their general name is the 

 jMeadoiv Larh; among the Virginians they are usually called the 

 Old field Lark, 



The length of this bird is ten inches and a half, extent sixteen 

 and a half ^ throat, breast, belly, and line from the eye to the nos- 

 trils, rich yellow; inside lining and edge of the wing the same; an 

 oblong crescent of deep velvetty black ornaments the lower part 

 of the throat; lesser wing-coverts black, broadly bordered with 

 pale ash ; rest of the wing feathers light brown handsomely serrated 

 with black; a line of yellowish white divides the crown, bounded 

 on each side by a stripe of black intermixed with bay, and another 

 line of yellowish white passes over each eye backwards; cheeks 

 blueish white, back and rest of the upper parts beautifully variegat- 

 ed with black, bright bay, and pale ochre ; tail wedged, the feathers 

 neatly pointed, tlie four outer ones on each side, nearly all white; 

 sides, thighs, and vent pale yellow ochre, streaked with black ; up- 

 per mandible brown, lower blueish white ; eyelids furnished with 

 strong black hairs ; legs and feet very large, and of a pale flesh color. 



The female has the black crescent more skirted with grey, and 

 not of so deep a black. In the rest of her markings the plumage 

 differs little from that of the male. I must here take notice of a 

 mistake committed by Mr. Edwards in his History of Birds, Vol. 

 VI, p. 123, where, on the authority of a bird dealer of London, he 

 describes the Calandre Lark (a native of Italy and Russia) as be- 

 longing also to N. America, and having been brought from Caro- 

 lina. I can say with confidence, that in all my excursions thro 

 that and the rest of the Southern states, I never met such a bird, 

 nor any person who had ever seen it. I have no hesitation in be- 

 lieving that the Calandre is not a native of the United States. 



