LARK, a bird of the family Alaudidce. Larks are small, ground-keeping birds, with small awl-like beaks, the long tarsi scutellated posteriorly, and the claw of the hind toe usually greatly lengthened; the wings much in length, but are usually short, as also is the tail. The normal coloration is light brown with darker longitudinal streaks, the under parts be ing whitish and the breast usually spotted. There is frequently a crest or decided blackish marks about the head, while the desert forms are, as usual, pale and ornamented. Larks dwell in open grassy places, making their nests on the ground or among rocks, sometimes elaborately, and laying spotted eggs; they are sociable, but hardly gregarious. Some fre quently perch on trees, and most of them soar while singing, as is well known of the sky lark (q.v.), and the song of many resembles that of this renowned musician. It is a physio logical peculiarity of the family that larks molt only once a year. The food consists of insects and their larva, worms, small seeds, buds, ber ries, etc. The flesh of all is considered a dainty, and great numbers are caught annually on both sides of the Mediterranean to be sold in the markets. The family includes about 100
species, divided among about a dozen genera, of which only one, Otocorys, with probably but a single species (the horned lark, q.v.) is found in America, and only a single species occurs in Australia. The remainder of the family belongs to Europe, Asia and Africa, where familiar types are the sky-lark and wood-lark (qq.v.).
The name is also given to many more or less similar birds of other families, as to sev eral of the pipits and Old World warblers, while the meadow-lark (q.v.) of the United States is a starling.
a fringilline bird of the western plains of the United States, the male of which in summer is solid black, except a conspicuous white patch on the wings and the female brown-streaked. The habits of the pair are terrestrial, and the male soars in singing after the manner of the sky-lark and with some similarity in notes. A very different bird, one of the smaller plains sparrows (Chondestis grammaca), is known as the lark-finch.