SHORE LARK. 
47 
place, than several other males join in the fray. They close, flutter, bite, 
and tumble over, as the European Sparrow is observed to do on similar 
occasions. Several times while in Labrador, I took advantage of their 
pugnacious disposition, and procured two or three individuals at a shot, 
which it is difficult to do at any other time. Several pairs breed in the 
same place, but not near each other. The male bird sings sweetly while on 
wing, although its song is comparatively short. It springs from the moss or 
naked rock obliquely, for about forty yards, begins and ends its madrigal, 
then performs a few irregular evolutions, and returns to the ground. There 
also it sings, but less frequently, and with less fulness. Its call-note is quite 
mellow, and altered at times in a ventriloquial manner, so different, as to 
seem like that of another species. As soon as the young are hatched, the 
whole are comparatively mdte, merely using the call-note. Only one brood 
is reared each season. 
The food of the Shore Lark consists of grass-seeds, the blossoms of dwarf 
plants, and insects. It is an expert catcher of flies, following insects on 
wing to a considerable distance, and now and then betaking itself to the 
sea-shore to search for minute shell-fish or Crustacea. 
The Shore Larks reach the United States at the approach of winter. 
When the weather is severe in the north, they are seen in Massachusetts 
as early as October. Many spend the winter there, in the vicinity of the 
sea-shore and sandy fields ; others retire farther south, but seldom proceed 
beyond Maryland on the Atlantic, or the lower parts of Kentucky, west of 
the Alleghany mountains. My friend Bachman never saw one near 
Charleston, and only one have I seen in Louisiana, where the poor thing 
appeared quite lost, and so fatigued that I caught it. 
At this season they fly in their usual loose manner, over the fields and 
open grounds, in search of food, which now consists of seeds, and the dor- 
mant larvm of insects, mixing with the Pipit or Titlark, and now and then 
with the Cow Bunting and others. They become plum<p and fat, and afford 
delicious food, for which reason our eastern markets are supplied with them. 
Although they at times alight on fences, I never saw one on a tree. The 
ground, indeed, is their proper place ; there they repose, near tufts of dry 
grass, in small groups, until the return of day, when they run about in a 
straggling manner. If affrighted, the whole take to wing, perform a few 
evolutions, and alight on the same ground again. 
I have given figures of this beautiful Lark in different stages. The male 
birds, which, during the love season, have the black tufts of feathers on 
their head, as represented in the plate, nearly lose them at the approach 
of winter, when the brightness of their whole summer plumage is also 
much diminished. 
