EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 257 



The eggs of the Sky Lark are four or five in number, sometimes 

 only three. The ground-colour varies from dull white to white, 

 with just a tinge of olive, and the markings are olive-brown, or 

 neutral brown, the underlying ones being pale grey. The spots 

 are generally so thickly distributed over the entire surface as to 

 conceal most of the ground-colour, and on the large end they are 

 often confluent and form an irregular zone. On those eggs where 

 the markings are not so thickly dispersed, the zone is much 

 broader and darker. A rare but very beautiful variety of the egg 

 of this bird is white in ground-colour, thickly mottled and spotted 

 with brownish-red, and with numerous underlying markings of 

 grey. The eggs are not subject to any great variation in colour, 

 but differ somewhat in shape, some specimens being very round, 

 others pyriform, and many oval ; they vary in length from 1/0 to 

 - 87 inch, and in breadth from 0"72 to 0"63 inch. 



THE WHITE-WINGED LARK. 

 {Alauda sibirica.)* 



Plate 58, Fig. 13. 



The White -winged Lark has once been obtained in this 

 country. It breeds on the steppes and is a common resident 

 in the extreme south-east of Russia. In Siberia it is a migra- 

 tory bird, wintering in Turkestan. 



The nest is built in a little cavity on the ground under a tuft of 

 herbage or beneath a little bush, and is said to be made of grass. 



The eggs are four or five in number, and apparently do not 

 differ much. Specimens in my collection from the Volga are 

 yellowish-white in ground-colour, spotted with a light and dark 

 shade of almost neutral-brown, and with numerous underlying 

 markings of violet-grey. The spots are large and almost evenly 

 distributed over the entire surface ; but some specimens have 

 most of the markings round the large end, many of them being 

 confluent. They vary in length from 0'96 to 0"86 inch, and in 

 breadth from 069 to 061 inch. The eggs of the White-winged 

 Lark, although they resemble those of the Sky Lark very closely 

 in size and colour are, however, easily distinguished ; they are 

 much more pear-shaped, and the spots are much larger, more 



* Mclanocoyypha sibirica — Sharpe, Handb., I., p. 82. 

 R 



