According to Selby, the young of the first brood are fully fledged by the end of June, and the second in August. The Lark evinces a very strong attachment to its young, and many interesting accounts are given by European writers of its intelligent endeavors to conceal and to protect its nest,—in one instance constructing an artificial dome of dry grass, where the natural protection had been cut away by mowers, and in another attempting to remove the young to a place of greater safety.
The Lark has, in several instances, been successfully induced to mate and rear her young in an aviary; and Mr. W. P. Foster, of Hackney, is quoted by Mr. Yarrell as authority for the statement, that, during the period of producing the eggs, the female has been heard to sing with a power and a variety of tone equal to the voice of her mate.
While his mate is sitting on her eggs, the male Lark, apparently timid at all other times, is remarkably bold, and drives away other birds that venture too near their nest. He not only watches over her and seeks to protect her, but assiduously supplies her with food.
Eremophila, Boie, Isis, 1828, 322. (Type, Alauda alpestris. Sufficiently distinct from Eremophilus, Humboldt, [Fishes,] 1805.)
Phileremos, Brehm, Deutschl. Vögel, 1831.
Otocoris, Bonaparte, 1839. (Type, Alauda alpestris, Gray.) (We are unable to find where the genus is named.)
Gen. Char. First primary wanting; bill scarcely higher than broad; nostrils circular, concealed by a dense tuft of feathers; the nasal fossæ oblique. A pectoral crescent and cheek-patches of black.
♂ Eremophila alpestris.
This genus differs from Melanocorypha in having no spurious first primary, although the other characters are somewhat similar. Calandritis of Cabanis, with the same lack of first primary, has a much stouter bill. The spurious primary, more depressed bill, and differently constituted nostrils and nasal fossæ of Alauda are readily distinctive.
Eremophila alpestris.
The type of this genus is the Alauda alpestris, Linn., a well-known cosmopolitan species, though the birds of the New World have been distinguished under distinctive names, as cornuta, chrysolæma, peregrina, etc. The examination and critical comparison of more than a hundred specimens from all parts of North America, however, has convinced us of the identity with alpestris of the several forms mentioned above, though it may be advisable to retain one or more of them as geographical races.
E. alpestris. Adult. Above pinkish-gray, varying to cinnamon, the pinkish deepest on nape and lesser wing-coverts; tail black (except two middle feathers), the outer feather edged with white. Beneath white, the sides pinkish or grayish. A frontal band and superciliary stripe, the middle of auriculars, chin, and throat varying from white to deep Naples-yellow; forepart of crown, and “ear-tufts,” a patch on lores and cheeks, and a broad crescent across the jugulum, deep black; end of auriculars ashy. Female and autumnal males, with the pattern less sharply defined, and the colors more suffused. Young. Brownish-black above, more or less mixed with clay-color, and sprinkled with whitish dots; wing-feathers all bordered with whitish. Beneath white. Markings on head and jugulum just merely indicated by dusky cloudings.
Wing (of adult male), 4.20 to 4.60; tail, 2.90 to 3.16; culmen, .60 to .65.
White frontal band, .25 to .30, wide; the black prefrontal patch, .26 to .35 wide. The pinkish above of an ashy-lilac shade.
Throat and forehead white, with only a very faint tinge of yellow; pinkish tinge above more rufous. Hab. Interior Northern Plains of the United States … var. occidentalis.
Throat and forehead pale straw-yellow, or strongly tinged with it; pinkish tinge above varying from ashy-lilacous to purplish-rufous. Hab. Northern regions of Old and New Worlds … var. alpestris.
Wing (adult male), 3.80 to 4.10; tail, 2.75 to 2.90; culmen, .53 to .62.
White frontal band, .13 to .16 wide; the black prefrontal patch, .35 to .50 wide. Pinkish above of a deep cinnamon shade. Hab. Desert plains of South Middle Province of United States, and table-lands of Mexico, south to Bogota … var. chrysolæma.
PLATE XXXII.
1. Eremophila cornuta. ♂ Nev., 53470.
2. Eremophila cornuta. Juv., Wisc., 4330.
3. Alauda arvensis. Europe.
4. ♂ Pa., 977.
5. Dolichonyx oryzivorus. ♀ Kansas, 13069.
6. Molothrus pecoris. ♀ Ga., 32446.
7. Molothrus pecoris. ♀
8. Molothrus pecoris. var. obscurus. ♂ Manzanillo, Mex., 30165.
9. Xanthocephalus icterocephalus. ♂ Utah, 58624.
Sp. Char. Adult male; spring. A frontal crescent, curving backward in a broad, sharply defined, superciliary stripe to the occiput; chin, throat and foreneck, and a crescent across middle of ear-coverts, whitish, either more or less tinged with yellow, or pure white. Lower parts, except laterally, white. A broad crescentic patch behind the frontal whitish crescent, running back on each side of the crown and terminating in an erectile tuft of narrow elongated feathers on each side of occiput, a patch covering the lores, nasal tufts, passing beneath the eye, and forming a broad “mustache” on the cheeks, with a convex outline behind and concave anteriorly, and a broad crescentic patch across the jugulum, deep black. A crescentic spot of grayish-drab across the ends of the auriculars. Posterior portion of the crown enclosed laterally between the “ear-tufts,” occiput, nape, lateral lower parts, lesser and middle wing-coverts, and upper tail-coverts, pinkish-brown; the sides and flanks with obsolete dusky streaks. Back, scapulars, rump, wings, and two middle tail-feathers, ashy-drab, the feathers darker centrally, forming rather conspicuous broad streaks on lower part of back; middle and secondary coverts, secondaries and primaries bordered terminally, quite conspicuously, with white. Tail (except the intermediæ) black; outer web of lateral feather almost entirely white, that of the next edged with the same.
Adult female; spring. Similar, but markings rather less sharply defined; a tendency to streaking of nape and crown; these streaks often displacing the continuous black of the anterior portion of crown. The “ear-tufts” less developed.
Winter adult. Similar to the spring dress, but the black areas obscured, more or less, by whitish borders to the feathers; the frontal whitish band less sharply defined. Breast with numerous more or less distinct deltoid specks of plumbeous, and the pinkish of the sides much