192 NOVITATES ZOOLOOICAE XXI. 19U. 



The peculiar powerful bill of ("lot-bey's Lark suggests that hard seeds are 

 their food. This is perhaps the case at certain times of the 3'ear, but in spring 

 locusts are the principal food of these birds. They can often be seen running about 

 with big and small locusts and other orthoptera in their beaks, carrying them to 

 their young or eating them. In the stomachs only remains of these insects were 

 found. Mr. Whitaker found in the crop of a Rhamphoeonjs a good-sized beetle and 

 some small seeds in several cases. 



The female leaves the nest running; only when sitting hard on incubated eggs 

 is it occasionally flushed. 



21. Melanocorypha calandra calandra (L.). 



The Calandra Lark was seen in various places along tiie railway-line from 

 Alger to Oran and uoar Perrc'-gau.x. 



22. Calandrella brachydactyla rubiginosa Fromh. 



Ctdandrdla hrachydach/ln ruhiginosa Fromholz, Oni. Mimatsher. 1913. p. 140 (South .\lgeria and 

 Tademait and Tinghert Plateaux, Western Sahara) 



In Noc. Zool. xviii. (191.'2) p. 486 and elsewhere we have called attention to 

 the fact that South-Algerian-breeding Short-toed Larks are more sandy and more 

 rufescent (on the crown 1) than most S. -European breeding birds, bnt not having 

 good series of breeding birds from S. Europe we refrained from giving a name to 

 the South-Algerian-breeding race. Dr. Fromholz has now named the latter race, 

 and his name, C. b. rubiginosa, is available and must be used for our birds, though 

 the author named his new form on wrong premises, taking some winter migrants 

 of C. hracfii/daeti/la lonqipeniiis (Eversm.) for C. b. brachi/dacti/la. 



We only found the Short-toed Lark along the foot of Djebel Aissa, near Ain 

 Sefra, where the ground was well covered with vegetation, not on the stony 

 hammada where Uhamphocorf/s lived. 



On May 15 young birds, already flying about with their jiarents, were 

 collected. 



From comparison of a bird shot late in May near Lac Fetzara in North 

 Algeria, and others in Count Zedlitz's collections, it becomes clear that G. b. rubiginosa 

 only breeds in Southern Algeria, while the North-Algerian race is the same as the 

 South-European one. 



23. Ammomanes deserti algeriensis Sharpe. 



We found the Desert Lark not rare near Ain Sefra, in the hammada and now 

 and then up to ITjUO mm. on Djebel Aissa. Of the two males we skinned one is 

 oF gigantic size, and might almost be taken for ..4. deserti mi/a, with a wing of 

 103-5 mm. (107-111 in A. d. mya—ci. Nov. Zool. 1913, p. 43. The wing of the 

 other male measures 10t)'6 mm. Both are rather strikingly reddish, also dark on 

 the upperside, like most worn breeding birds. 



Nests with incubated eggs were found on May 3, 5, and 9. They were placed 

 under bushes of Artemisia herba-alba, a little more bidden than the nests of 

 C'lot-bey's Lark. They contained four eggs ; only one had only three. The nests 

 all contained much wool of the g&Wao^ Rhopolomi/ia )Hfrasi (see under R//rimjj/iocon/s 

 clot-bey), also pieces of rags, sheej/s wool, and spider-webs, sometimes also grass- 

 risps. Every one of the nests had a stone wall or run, and all were jjlaced on the 

 east side of the bushes. 



