NON-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 35 



Family ALAUDID.E. Genus Calandrella. 



SHORT-TOED LARK. 



Calandrella brachydactyla {Leiskf). 



(British : Rare abnormal autumn migrant.) 



Single Brooded. Laying season, May and June. 



Breeding area : South-\vest PaL-earctic region. The 

 Short-toed Lark breeds in Central and Southern France, 

 the Spanish Peninsula, Southern Germany, Italy, 

 Turkey, Greece, the Danubian Provinces, and Southern 

 Russia ; it also breeds on the various islands in the 

 Mediterranean, in North-west Africa, and on the 

 Canaries. Eastwards it breeds in Asia Minor, Palestine, 

 Persia, Turkestan, and South-west Siberia as far east 

 as the province of Semipolatinsk. 



Breeding area : The Short-toed Lark is another 

 bird of the steppes, especially such as are of a sandy 

 character. Its favourite breeding haunts are open plains 

 and grassy downs, large fields of cereals and rough 

 uncultivated lands often some distance above sea-level. 

 It is a very obtrusive bird, incessantl}'- taking song- 

 flights, and it has been heard even to warble on the 

 ground. Although gregarious in winter it lives in 

 scattered pairs during the breeding season. The nest 

 is invariably made upon the ground, either amongst 

 herbage or beneath the shade of a little bush, or even 

 a clod of earth or dry dung, or a tuft of grass. It is 

 usually made in a little hollow, either scraped out by 

 the parent bird or selected ready for the purpose. This 

 nest is cup-shaped, and made externally of dry grass, 

 roots, and stalks of small plants, and lined with finer 

 grass and roots. In some districts the nests appear to 

 be much more elaborately made than in others, being 



