480 
GRANIYOROUS BIRDS. 
approach of fine weather. While here they appear silent 
and solitary, and are not difficult to approach. Their 
food, as usual, is seeds of grasses, insects, and their larvae. 
The length of this species is 7J inches ; alar extent about 10. 
The back streaked with dark rusty-brown and pale bluish- white 3 
the wings dusky, edged broadly with brown 3 2 white bands pro- 
duced on the wing by the broad white tips of the greater and lesser 
wing-coverts 3 tertials black, edged with brown and white. Rump 
and tail-coverts drab tinted with lighter. Tail long, rounded, dusky, 
broadly edged with drab 3 belly white 3 vent pale ochreous. Bill 
cinnamon-brown. Legs and feet, about the color of the bill, but 
lighter. Iris reddish-hazel. — In the female the white on the head 
is less pure, the black smaller in extent, and the ash on the breast 
darker 3 she is also somewhat less. 
LARK FINCH. 
{Fringilla grammacea, Say. Bonap. Am. Orn. i. p. 47. pi. 5. fig. 3. 
Phil. Museum, No. 6288.) 
Sp. Charact. — Head striped with black and whitish ; tail rounded, 
the lateral feathers partly white 3 a white patch on the wing ; 
above greyish-brown with dusky spots. 
For this species we are again indebted to Mr. Say, 
who observed it in abundance near the Council Bluffs and 
the neighbouring country of the Missouri in the spring as 
well as in the month of June. It appears to be wholly 
confined to the west side of the Mississippi, and probably 
extends to Mexico. They frequent the prairie grounds, 
and seldom if ever alight on trees ; they sing sweetly, 
and, like Larks, have the habit of continuing their notes 
while on the wing. 
This species is 6J inches long. On the top of the head there are 
2 widish dark lines, passing into ferruginous behind and separated 
from each other by a light grey line ; another whitish line extends 
from the base of the upper mandible over the eye to the sides of the 
neck ; another small, interrupted, almost similarly colored line passes 
from the bill beneath the eye 3 a broadish space of umber extends 
