Lark

a family of small birds. There are over 100 Old World species--trim, alert birds with sparrow--like plumage. The common skylark, celebrated for its powers of flight and its song poured out while soaring and floating at great heights, is a modest brown bird of the open fields. It nests in open commons in the shelter of a tuft of grass or a clod, and feeds on seeds, insects, and worms. It breeds throughout Europe and temperate Asia, migrating southward for the winter, but is known chiefly as the English skylark. Attempts have been made to introduce it in Long Island and elsewhere.

The American representatives of the family are the horned larks which, like their British relatives, have a long hind toe and walk with a graceful, elastic step or a swift run, instead of hopping like a sparrow. A tuft or horn of black feathers on each side of the head, and a sulphur-yellow forehead and throat, are sufficient to attract attention to the horned shore lark. It breeds in Northern Canada and winters in New England and southward. The prairie horned lark is a trifle smaller. The yellow spots are paler, or even white. It is a bird of the western plain, but has extended its nesting range into the Upper Mississippi Valley and eastward. It is a winter resident, associating with snowbirds. If an adult sparrow-like bird runs familiarly along the road in front of one and flies ahead from time to time without showing the white outside tail feathers of the vesper sparrow, the chances are good that it is a prairie horned lark. Look for the short black tufts on its head.

The following lines are a poet's description of a skylark: