HORNED LARK. 
295 
vations of Temminck, they are unknown to the south of Ger- 
many. Pallas met with these birds round Lake Baikal and on 
the Volga, in the 53d degree of latitude. Westward they have 
also been seen in the interior of the United States, along the 
shores of the Missouri. 
They arrive in the Northern and Middle States late in the 
fall or commencement of winter. In New England they are 
seen early in October, and disappear generally on the approach 
of the deep storms of snow, though straggling parties are still 
found nearly throughout the winter. In the other States to 
the South they are more common at this season, and are par- 
ticularly numerous in South Carolina and Georgia, frequenting 
open plains, old fields, common grounds, and the dry shores 
and banks of bays and rivers, keeping constantly on the 
ground, and roving about in families under the guidance of the 
older birds, who, watching for any approaching danger, give 
the alarm to the young in a plaintive call very similar to that 
which is uttered by the Skylark in the same circumstances. 
Inseparable in all their movements, like the hen and her fos- 
tered chickens, they roost together in a close ring or com- 
pany, by the mere edge of some sheltering weed or tuft of 
grass on the dry and gravelly ground, and thickly and warmly 
clad, they abide the frost and the storm with hardy indiffe- 
rence. They fly rather high and loose, in scattered companies, 
and follow no regular time of migration, but move onward only 
as their present resources begin to fail. They are usually fat, 
esteemed as food, and are frequently seen exposed for sale in 
our markets. Their diet, as usual, consists of various kinds of 
seeds which still remain on the grass and weeds they frequent, 
and they swallow a considerable portion of gravel to assist 
their digestion. They also collect the eggs and dormant 
larvae of insects when they fall in their way. About the middle 
of March they retire to the North, and are seen about the 
beginning of May round Hudson Bay, after which they are 
no more observed till the return of autumn. They arrive in 
the fur countries along with the Lapland Buntings, with which 
they associate ; and being more shy, act the sentinel usually to 
