_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 tinged with the same. The dusky streaks above are broader and more conspicuous. _Young._ First plumage, entirely different from the adult. Above dusky, variegated with whitish dots, sprinkled over the whole surface; these specks terminal on each feather, and of a deltoid form, becoming more transverse and crescentic on the scapulars and rump; each feather of the wings broadly bordered with pale brownish, approaching white on the coverts. The blackish areas are but faintly indicated by a dusky suffusion, generally very indistinct, across the breast, and over the cheeks; and variegated with badly defined, more dusky spots; lower parts, including post-ocular stripe, dull white; sides spotted with dusky. The _E. alpestris_, as restricted, is represented in the collection by three perfect specimens, in the several stages of plumage described; while there is also a fine specimen from Astrachan, representing a white-throated race (“var. _bei_” on MS. label) of Central Asia. The series of American specimens is all that could possibly be desired, there being numerous examples from nearly the whole northern continent, from the Arctic regions to as far south as Bogota, and from coast to coast. The common Shore Lark of the northern parts of North America appears to be absolutely identical with the European bird, each of the specimens of the latter being easily matched from the American series. It therefore becomes necessary to reduce the name “_cornuta_” to a synonyme of _alpestris_, the former not affording characters to distinguish it as even a variety. To _alpestris_ may also be referred the form known as “_occidentalis_, McCall,” those specimens from the interior regions which are destitute of any yellow tinge on the throat. Were this feature a constant one in specimens from the region which it characterizes, it would be, of course, right to retain the name in the form of _alpestris_ var. _occidentalis_. As it is, however, quite a large percentage of the specimens from every locality where _occidentalis_ is found have more or less yellow throats, but it is possible that this mixture of the two may be the result of irregular migrations, those yellow-throated individuals being stragglers from their breeding habitat,—more to the eastward and northward. In its white instead of straw-yellow throat, and more lilaceous than vinaceous upper parts, this form bears a close resemblance to a race of the deserts of Western (and Central?) Asia,—the “_bei_”[26]; the latter, however, has these features more exaggerated than in the one of the central plains of North America. Breeding throughout the table-lands of Mexico, and in the Western