450 
INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 
Genus. — ANTHUS. (Larks of Lin.) 
In these birds the bill, is straight, slender, cylindric, and subulate 
towards the point, with the edges somewhat inflected towards the 
middle, and at the base destitute of bristles ; the base of the upper 
mandible carinated, with the point slightly notched and declining. 
Nostrils basal, lateral, half closed by a membrane. Feet slender; 
tarsus longer than the middle toe ; inner toe free ; hind toe shortest 
with the nail almost always long, and somewhat straight. — Wings 
moderate, no spurious feather; 1st, 2d, and 3d primaries longest; 
secondaries notched at tip ; 2 of the scapulars nearly equal to the 
longest primaries. Tail rather long and emarginate. 
The female and young are usually much like the adult male, 
who assumes somewhat more brilliant colors only during a few 
days of the breeding season. The moult is annual. — These birds 
have many of the habits of the Wagtails and also of the Larks ; they 
sing when rising on the wing in the same manner as the latter. 
They live habitually on the ground in open places, in fields, and 
along the gravelly borders of streams and other bodies of water; 
while thus employed in collecting their sole insect food, they keep 
their tails vertically moving like the Motacillas ; they also nest on 
the ground, and most of the species never alight on trees. The spe- 
cies, though few? are spread over the whole globe. 
BROWN or RED LARK. 
( Anthus spinoletta , Bonap. A. aquaticus , Audubon, pi. 10. Orn. 
Biog. i p. 49. Alauda rufa, Wilson, v. p. 89. pi. 42. fig. 4. 
[young.] Phil. Museum, No. 5138.) 
Sp. Charact. — Beneath and line over the eye white ; breast and 
flanks spotted with blackish ; tail-feathers nearly black, the outer 
one half white, upon the 2d and often upon the 3d, a conic white 
spot; hind nail long and curved. — Female more spotted below. 
— Young dark-brown inclining to olive, with blackish-brown 
spots ; line over the eye and beneath pale yellowish rufous, the 
breast strongly spotted. — The old male , for a short time in the 
breeding season, is below of a pale rufous rose-color. 
This is a winter bird of passage in most parts of the 
United States, arriving in loose, scattered flocks from the 
North, in the Middle and Eastern States, about the sec- 
