Vol. XXI"| 
1904 J 
General Notes. 
81 
Extension of the Breeding Range of the Prairie Horned Lark ( Otocoris 
alpestris praticola) to the Eastern Coast. — On August 9, 1903, at Ipswich, 
Mass., Mr. Ralph Hoffmann saw two adults of this species with a fully 
grown young bird. Two days later, on August 11, Mr. Thomas L. 
Bradlee shot, at the same place, two young birds, both females, and saw 
three other individuals. They were near a road in open fields not far 
from the sea. Again two days later, on August 13, I secured a young 
male of this species that was alone on the upper edge of Ipswich beach. 
The specimens secured by Mr. Bradlee were examined by Dr. J. 
Dwight, Jr., who stated in a letter to Mr. Bradlee that the bifds“were 
undoubtedly fraticola ” and “were in juvenal plumage, moulting into 
first winter dress, only two or three primaries and a few rectrices remain- 
ing. In this condition this species (or any sparrow) does not and 
probably can not migrate, so I have no doubt the birds were hatched near 
where they were found.” 
My own bird may have been from another brood, as although it was 
taken four days later, its plumage is more juvenal, being more spotted 
above, and having 9 juvenal rectrices and 4 juvenal primaries, against 
5 rectrices and 3 primaries in Mr. Bradlee’s birds. It was taken three 
miles from the first station. 
The Prairie Horned Lark has been seen at Ipswich before in the fall 
migrations, but this is'the first time it has been found there in the breed- 
ing season. At last this enterprising bird in its progress eastward has 
reached the sea. Formerly a bird of the western prairies, it was recorded 
as breeding near Troy, N. Y., in 1881 (Park, Bull. N. O. C., VI, 1881, p. 
177). Its first recorded breeding in New England was at Cornwall, Vt., 
in June, 1889 (C. H. Parkhill, O. & O., XIV, 1889, p. 87). In 1890 speci- 
mens were secured in the breeding season in Williamstown and North 
Adams, Mass., by Mr. Walter Faxon ( Faxon, Auk, IX, 1892, p. 202 ), and 
a nest and eggs were found near Pittsfield by Mr. C. H. Buckingham 
July 10, 1892 (Brewster, Auk, XI, 1894, p. 326). 
In 1891 it was observed in June and July at Franconia, N. H. (Faxon, 
Auk, IX, 1895, p. 202). The foregoing records are from Faxon and 
Hoffmann on ‘The Birds of Berkshire,’ 1900, p. 138. They state that the 
bird is a “rare summer resident at Williamstown, North Adams, Lanes- 
boro, Pittsfield.” 
In 1899 the bird was found breeding as far east as Hubbardston in 
Worcester County, Mass., Mr. Frederick Cunningham, Jr., in July of 
that year “finding a nest with eggs from which the young were safely 
reared” (Howe & Allen, ‘ The Birds of Mass.,’ 1901, p. 81). — Charles W. 
Townsend, M. D., Boston , Mass. Auk, XXI, Jan. , 1904, p. S/ 
Breeding of the Prairie Horned Lark in Eastern Massachusetts.— 
As a supplement to Dr. C. W. Townsend’s note on the discovery in Au- 
gust, 1903 , of young Otocoris alpestris praticola at Ipswich, Mass., where 
they had undoubtedly been bred (Auk, XXI, p. 81 , Jan., 1904 ), it may 
be worth while to record that on Sept. 4 , 1905 , I obtained two birds of 
this subspecies, shot in my presence by a gunner (who mistook them for 
plover!) out of three which were flitting about a stony beach and a grassy 
hillside at Ipswich. One of these birds is apparently an adult, but the 
other is a young bird in juvenal plumage just moulting into the first 
winter plumage. They are now in Dr. Townsend’s collection. As further 
evidence of the eastward spread of the breeding range of the Prairie 
Horned Lark, I may add that on Aug. 16 , 1903 , I saw a lark, doubtless 
of this subspecies, with a spotted breast and a yellowish bill, evidently 
in the juvenal plumage, at Natick, Mass. This bird was seen a few days 
earlier at the same place by Mr. R. B. Worthington of Dedham, Mass. — 
Francis H. Allen, West Roxhury, Mass. 
Ask, XXlll, Jail. , 1006, p. iot-ioi. 
