SMITH’S LA RE-BUNTING. 
219 
inch ; all the outer veins delicately edged with white. Tail emarginate, two 
inches and one-eighth in length, with the outer feather on each side white. 
The second white also, but having a longitudinal line of brownish-black 
on the inner side reaching nearly the whole length. 
Bill along the ridge f inch, brownish above, pale below ; along the edge 
f, to pinion 1 T 9 T ; wing from flexure 3i ; bill to end of tail 6, to end of 
claws 6^ ; alar extent 10$ ; tarsus f ; middle toe §•, its clawl ; hind toe its 
claw Legs, feet and claws light yellowish flesh-colour, and transparent. 
The female is very little smaller and precisely like the male. The 
young when fully fledged resemble the parents, but have all the upper 
plumage more distinctly marked. 
FAMILY XV.* — FRIN GILLINiE. FINCHES. 
Genus I.f— PLECTROPHANES, Meyer. LARK-BUNTING. 
SMITH’S LARK-BUNTING. 
Plectrophanes Smithii, Aud. 
PLATE CCCCLXXXVIL— Male. 
This species was discovered by my companions, Edward Harris and J. 
G. Bell, during an excursion on the prairies of Illinois, in the vicinity of 
Edwardsville. Several specimens were procured by those gentlemen, and 
the following account of its habits has been handed to me by Mr. Bell. 
He says — 
“We found these birds very abundant on the low prairie, near a lake in 
Illinois, about seven or eight miles distant from Edwardsville, whilst engaged 
in shooting Ducks, Geese, and American Snipes. They were generally in 
large flocks, and when on the ground they at once began to scatter and 
divide themselves, rendering it difficult for us to kill more than two at one 
shot ; they run very nimbly, and in a manner resembling that of the Bay- 
* See vol. Hi. p. 49. 
f Ibid. 
