ALAUDID/E. 



255 



THE SHORT-TOED LARK. 



Alauda brachydactyla, Leisler. 



The Short-toed Lark is a rare wanderer to England, and the 

 authenticated instances of its occurrence appear to be : — one near 

 Shrewsbury, two near Brighton, one near Southampton, one on the 

 Scilly Islands, one near Cambridge, and one in South Breydon 

 Marshes, Norfolk — all in autumn ; and one killed near Brighton in 

 April 1858 by a person who saw it alight and begin dusting itself 

 in the road. On July 27th 1888, Mr. Cooper, the taxidermist, of 

 Radnor Street, E.C., showed me a live bird said to have been taken 

 at Amberley, Sussex, on the i8th of that month. In Ireland one 

 was obtained on the Black-rock light-house, co. Mayo, on October 

 nth 1890, and was sent to Mr. R. M. Barrington in the flesh. 



Although this species has been recorded as a visitor to Heligoland, 

 it can only be considered a straggler to Northern or even Central 

 Germany, Belgium, or France north of Paris ; but at Blois the late 

 Sir Edward Newton found it breeding, and it is a regular summer- 

 visitant to the districts further south, though said to emigrate in 

 winter. In the Spanish Peninsula it is abundant and — in the 

 southern portions at least — resident ; it is so also in North-western 

 Africa, but in the north-east, as far south as Abyssinia, it is only 

 found in winter and on passage, when it is very numerous, and 

 occurs in large flocks. To Italy it is only a summer-visitor, although 

 abundant in the south, but in Malta it is sedentary, and it is found 



