[Illustration 298: Vermillion Flycatcher.] [Illustration: Buff.] [Illustration: deco.] [Illustration: left hand margin.] Page 297 LARKS. Family ALAUDIDÆ 473. SKYLARK. _Alauda arvensis._ Range.--Old World, straggling casually to Greenland and Bermuda. This noted foreigner has been imported and liberated a number of times in this country, but apparently is not able to thrive here, a fact which will not cause much regret when we remember the experiment with the English Sparrow. They are abundant in Europe and Great Britain where they nest on the ground in cultivated fields or meadows, laying from three to five grayish eggs, marked with brown, drab and lavender. 474. HORNED LARK. _Otocoris alpestris alpestris._ Range.--Eastern North America, breeding in Labrador and about Hudson Bay; winters in eastern United States south to Carolina. This variety of this much sub-divided species is 7.5 inches in length, has brownish gray upper parts and is white below with black patches on the breast and below the eye, yellowish throat and small black ear tufts. The various subspecies are all marked alike, their distinction being based upon slight differences in size, variations in the shade of the back, or the greater or less intensity of the yellowish throat and superciliary stripe. The nesting habits of all the varieties are the same and the eggs differ only in the shade of the ground color, this variation among the eggs of the same variety being so great that an egg cannot be identified without knowing the locality in which it was taken. The present variety build their nests on the ground generally under tufts of grass or in hollows in the moss which is found in their breeding range, making them of dried grasses and generally lining them with feathers. The eggs are grayish with a slight greenish tinge, and are specked and spotted over the whole surface with drab, brownish and dark lavender. The eggs of this and the next variety average considerably larger than those of the more southerly distributed varieties; size .92 × .65. 474a. PALLID HORNED LARK. _Otocoris alpestris arcticola._ Range.--Breeds in Alaska and winters south to Oregon and Montana. This is the largest of the Horned Larks and has the throat white, with no trace of yellow. Its nest is built in similar locations and the eggs are like those of the preceding species. [Illustration 299: Grayish.] [Illustration: Horned Lark.] [Illustration: deco.] [Illustration: right hand margin.] Page 298 474b. PRAIRIE HORNED LARK. _Otocoris alpestris praticola._ Range.--Breeds in the Mississippi Valley from Illinois north to Manitoba and east to the Middle States; winters south to Carolina and Texas.