TOWNSEND AND ALLEN: LABRADOR BIRDS. 
385 
lines, or if the wind be strong, he heads up into it and remains in the 
same place. The performance ended, he plunges head foremost 
down to the earth, reaching it in a marvelously short space of time. 
The descent is as silent as the ascent. 
Several times we heard the birds singing above us out of sight in 
the fog, and occasionally they sang from a rock the same song, but 
with less energy and abandon. In one case the bird appeared to be 
singing as he went up, and he disappeared into the fog but it is possible 
he had already attained the summit of his flight. 
The familiar sibilant squeaking call note was commonly used, and 
also a note which we do not remember to have heard during the migra¬ 
tion in Massachusetts. This sounded like zzurrit and was often 
preceded by another note thus, whit-zzurrit. These notes were occa¬ 
sionally so soft and sweet that they recalled the trilling whistle of the 
Least Sandpiper. 
At Frenchman’s Isle on July 16th, we found the nest of a Horned 
Lark composed of dried grass and a few large feathers, deeply sunk 
into the reindeer lichen and moss in a level piece of ground. There 
was no shelter or covering of any sort. It contained three dark- 
skinned young, clothed sparingly in sulphur-yellow down. Their 
eyes were not yet open. There was also one egg containing a large 
embryo. The egg was gray in color, thickly spotted with fine dots, 
especially at the circumference of the larger end, where they formed 
a distinct brown ring. Birds in juvenal plumage, of which we saw 
a number, with their spotted backs were difficult to distinguish among 
the lichen-covered rocks. In the adults the “horns” of the males 
could be seen at a considerable distance and distinguished them from 
the females. The Horned Lark is not so confiding as its arctic com¬ 
panion the Pipit, and unlike that bird it was never seen among the 
tilts and fish stages. 
[Otocoris alpestris praticola Hensh. Prairie Horned Lark. — Erroneously 
recorded for southern Labrador by Norton (see 0. alpestris ).] 
Perisoreus canadensis nigricapillus (Ridgw.). 
Labrador Jay. 
Abundant permanent resident in forested regions. 
Wherever there is tree growth there this jay is found in Labrador. 
