Alauda alpestris, LINNÆUS; Alouette Haussecol noir, ou
Alouette de Virginie, BUFFON; Die Berglerche, BECHSTEIN.
This species is seven inches long, rather stronger than the field pipit,
and has the same plumage on the upper part of the body; but the throat
is light yellow, as well as the rest of the under part of the neck, over
which and the top of the breast passes a black band, which in the lower
part is shaped like a horse-shoe. The beak, feet, and claws, are black.
[Illustration: SHORE LARK.]
OBSERVATIONS.--This species properly inhabits the north as well of
Europe as of America, as far as Virginia; but in the winter it
appears in Germany, where it may be seen by the road side picking
for its food the undigested grains in horse-dung. It perches like the
wood-lark. It is caught in the southern parts of Thuringia with lime
twigs, or nets, at its return in March, when there has happened a
heavy fall of snow; but at such times it is so thin and so weak for
want of food as scarcely to have strength to eat what is offered to
it. It may, no doubt, be preserved in confinement by treating it like
other larks, but of this I have no experience, never having been able
to procure a single living individual of this species, which also
prevents my speaking of its song.