Instead of being suited by color, like most of the other _Pipilos_, to inhabit dark thickets and among dry leaves, this species is clad in a gayer livery, and seems well adapted for concealment in its summer resorts, and also among the growing vegetation of the lower country during the rainy season. Dr. Heermann found a few wintering in the Colorado Valley, and yet more at San Diego, but they left both places in March. He found them silent and shy, hiding very closely in the bushes, and feeding altogether on the ground. The only note he heard, resembled the crowing note of the California Quail. Among the memoranda of Mr. Xantus, made near Fort Tejon, are the two following: “4,839, nest and two eggs (of _Pipilo chlorurus_) found in a dry hedge in Mr. Ritchie’s garden; 5,083, nest and eggs found in a dark garden-hedge.” The eggs of the _chlorurus_ are like those of no other _Pipilo_ that I have met with. They are peculiar in shape, being nearly of an exact oval, neither end being apparently much more rounded than the other. Their ground-color is white with a bluish tint, over which is profusely diffused a cloud of fine dottings of a pinkish-drab. These markings are occasionally so fine and so thickly distributed as to give to the egg the appearance of a uniform color, or as an unspotted pinkish drab-colored egg. Occasionally the dots are deeper and larger, and more sparsely diffused. In considering the eggs of the _Pipilos_ in general we find certain variations which deserve more than a passing notice. Those of _erythrophthalmus_, _oregonus_, _arcticus_, and _megalonyx_ are all fringilline in their characters, and have a marked affinity to eggs of _Melospiza_, _Zonotrichia_, and many other genera of this order. The eggs of _aberti_, _fuscus_, _mesoleucus_, and _albigula_ are also all closely alike, and exhibit a very close resemblance to those of the _Agelaii_, and even of the _Icteri_, while the eggs of _P. chlorurus_, though of a fringilline character, are unlike either style. FAMILY ALAUDIDÆ.—THE LARKS. CHAR. First primary very short or wanting. Tarsi scutellate anteriorly and posteriorly, with the plates nearly of corresponding position and number. Hind claw very long and nearly straight. Bill short, conical, frontal feathers extending along side of the bill; the nostrils concealed by a tuft of bristly feathers directed forward. Tertials greatly elongate beyond the secondaries. Subfamilies and Genera. Alaudinæ. Bill stout, short, and conical; nasal fossæ transverse and completely filled by the thick tuft of bristly feathers, and perforated anteriorly by a circular nasal opening. (Old and New World.) Crown with a depressed soft crest of feathers, of normal structure; a spurious primary; tail deeply emarginate _Alauda_. Crown without a crest, but occiput with an erectile tuft of narrow elongated feathers on each side. No spurious primary; tail square, or slightly rounded _Eremophila_.