THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 25 



spots black and confluent ; crown white, with three conspicuous 

 black lines ; nape white, spotted with black; hind neck and sides 

 of neck have neossoptiles, with conspicuous sheaths enclosing the 

 bases ; back and rump white, with blackish-brown patches ; 

 wings with short quills bursting at their tips, the other portions in 

 white down ; the lesser and greater wing coverts have each a bar 

 of light brown upon them ; axillaries brown, barred with black ; 

 lores white ; bill brown; no tail quills ; legs and feet dull yellow; 

 eyes umber. 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF MIRAFRA 

 (BUSH-LARK) FROM WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 



By Alex. W. Milligan, Perth. 



(Communicated by F. G. A. Barnard.) 



{Read before the Field Naturalists^ Club of Victoria, 20th May, 1901.) 



Mr. Bernard H, Woodward, F.G.S., the Curator of the Perth 

 Museum, recently handed to me for identification a Passerine 

 bird (in skin), stated to have been shot by the Museum Collector 

 on the sand tracts near Onslow, on the north-west coast of this 

 State. 



After a careful examination I find it to be a new Mirafra, and 

 I propose to name it Mirafra woodwardi, as a tribute and an 

 appreciation of the very valuable services rendered by that gentle- 

 man not only to Australian ornithology, but also to science in 

 general. 



The bird under notice is a true scutelliplantar, showing with 

 distinctness the scale divisions on the hinder aspect of the tarsus — 

 a rare characteristic in the Passerines. It also possesses many of 

 the other distinguishing characteristics of one or other of the 

 Alaudidae to which 1 propose to briefly refer. In general, and 

 comparing it with the members of the Alaudine family, it is like 

 the Enj^lish Sky-Lark, Alauda arvensis, in that it has the 

 diminutive first primary quill, and that it exhibits a perceptible 

 crest, but it is unlike it in that it lacks the straight hind claw, and 

 it shows an inequality in the length of the secondary quills as 

 compared with the primaries. It is like the Calandra Larks, 

 genus Melanocorypha, inasmuch as it possesses the stout vaulted 

 mandibles characteristic of that genus, and that the wing is more 

 pointed and that the secondaries do not reach the tips of the 

 primaries, but unlike it in that it is smaller in size and the long 

 straight toe is absent. It is like the Calandrellce inasmuch as it 

 possesses the rudimentary first primary and the curved hind claw, 

 but unlike in that the secondaries are not as long as the primaries, 

 and that it possesses a crest, which the Calandrellre do not. It is 

 like the Galerit?e, or Crested Larks, inasmuch as it possesses a 

 crest, although not in such a pronounced form, and in the general 



