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. GENUS EREMOPHILA, BOIE. _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. [Illustration: ♂ _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. [Illustration: _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. Species and Varieties. 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.