606 ALAUDIDiE. 



Larks generally bathe, so to speak, in dust, while even the 

 desert-loving species of Pipits do not, and, finally, Larks do 

 not wag their tails as Pipits do. The structural characters 

 offered by the Alaudida, of which about one hundred species 

 are known, being very varied, convenience demands that 

 they should not be retained in a single genus, and very 

 many ways of separating the family have been proposed. 

 The six species to be here included seems referable to four 

 groups, the diagnosis of each of which can be given without 

 much difficulty, and the bird to be first described belongs to 

 one that can be at once distinguished by the style of its 

 coloration. 



In March 1830, a specimen of the Shore-Lark was shot 

 on the beach at Sherringham, in Norfolk (Mag. Nat. Hist, 

 iv. p. 116) and, having been preserved by the late Mr. John 

 Sims, then of Norwich, passed into the collection of the late 

 Mr. Lombe, the whole of which was in 1873 presented by 

 his daughter to the Norfolk and Norwich Museum. 



A second British example of the species, according to the 

 testimony of Mr. Eyton, was killed in Lincolnshire prior to 

 the end of 1837 ; and before November 1838 I had heard of 

 a pair that were obtained together on a down in Kent, the 

 male only of which was preserved. 



Of late the bird has appeared so often on the east coast of 

 Great Britain that details of each occurrence would be need- 

 less, did they not shew the progressively increasing frequency 

 of its visits to our shores. Lord Haddington informed Mr. 

 Gray of one that was shot at Berwick-on-Tweed in 1840. 

 In November 1850 a specimen was obtained at Great Yar- 

 mouth, and in March 1853 one at Filey in Yorkshire. In 

 March 1855, two were taken at Blakeney in Norfolk, and in 

 January 1859, according to Mr. Gray, a small flock ap- 

 peared on the estuary of the Tyne in East Lothian, out of 

 which at least three specimens were procured. In Novem- 

 ber 1861 three were taken alive at Brighton out of a flock 

 of five, and between that month and April 1862, six more 

 were killed at Great Yarmouth. In November 1862 one 

 was killed at Lowestoft, and in the same month two years 



