LARK FINCH. 
305 
LARK FINCH — FRINGILLA GRAMMACA Plate V. Fig. 3. 
FringiHa grammaca, Say, in Long's Expedition, i. p. 139. — Phil, Museum, 
No. 6288. 
PLECTR OP HANES ? GRAMMA Jardine. 
Fringilla grammaca, Bonap. Synop. p. 108. 
For this very interesting new species, Ornithology is again 
indebted to Long’s Expedition, and particularly to Say, who 
gave it the name we have adopted, and informs us, in his notes, 
that many of these birds were shot in the month of June, at 
Bellefontaine, on the Missouri; and others were observed, 
the following spring, at Engineer Cantonment, near Council 
Bluffs. 
It seems probable that the range of this bird is limited, in a 
great measure, by the Mississippi on the east. Like the larks, 
they frequent the prairies, and very seldom, if ever, alight on 
trees. They sing sweetly, and often continue their notes while 
on the wing. 
The lark finch is six inches and a half long ; its bill, a little 
notched at tip, is of a pale horn colour, with a slight elevation 
on the roof of the upper mandible. The feet are pale flax co- 
lour, tinged with orange ; the irides are dark brown. On the 
top of the head are two dilated lines, blackish on the front, and 
passing into ferruginous on the crown and hind head, separated 
from each other by a whitish cinereous line ; from the eye to 
the superior mandible is a black line, which, as well as the eye, 
is enclosed by a dilated white line, contracted behind the eye ; 
from the angle of the mouth proceeds a black line, which is 
much dilated into a ferruginous spot on the auricles ; below 
this is a broad white line, margined beneath by a narrow black 
one, originating at the inferior base of the lower mandible ; the 
chin and throat are pure white. The neck above, the back, 
and rump, are dull cinereous brown, each feather of the inter- 
VOL. III. 
u 
