MIRAFKA. 231 



Sometimes the markings are all very fine and speckly ; and are, 

 the one set a blackish brown, the other pale purplish grey. 



In length the eggs vary from 0-79 to 0-92, and in breadth from 

 0*57 to U"G5 ; but the average of twenty-six eggs measured is 0*83 

 by 0-61 *. 



Mirafra erythroptera, Jerd. lite Red-winged Busli-Larh. 



Mirafia ervthroptera, Jerd., Jvrd. B. hul. ii, p. 418 ; Hume, Roxujli 

 Draft N. ^- JB. no. 756. 



Dr. Jerdon tells us that " the Eed-winged Bush-Lark is found 

 in the tableland of the Deccan, extending south to the edges of 

 the Carnatic, and it is found also in the hilly district of Moughyr ;" 

 but he did not observe it in Saugor or Mhow. 



Now, this again conveys a scarcely correct notion of the distri- 

 bution of this species. This, and not M. assamica, is the Bush-Lark 

 par excellence of Northern India. Throughout the Central 

 Provinces, the North-western Provinces, the Punjab and liaj- 

 pootana (except at the extreme uest), and the drier portions of 

 Oudh, this Lark abounds, and is perhaps the commonest resident 

 Lark throughout this a ast tract, as a whole. It breeds from INIarch 

 to August. The nest is never (so far as I know, and I have seen 

 fifty) anything more than a smaller or larger pad of finer and 

 coarser grass, in which at times a little vegetable tibre is inter- 

 mixed, with a slight central depression. The situation chosen for 

 the nest varies. I have found them in a hoof-print, in a perfectly 

 bare plain, in an equally bare field under clods of earth, in open 

 country at the foot of some dense tuft of grass, in scattered jungle, 

 at the base of caper-bushes, or even young babool or neem trees, 

 and in amongst grass. Later, when the rains have set in, heaps 

 of kunker by the roadside or heaps of ballast beside the railway are 

 often selected ; and Mr. Brooks tells me that on one occasion he 

 found a nest containing the full complement of partially-incubated, 

 eggs amongst the ballast between the rails and almost under one of 

 them, so placed that trains were perpetually passing over the birds, 

 the rim of the wheels passing within 2 or 3 inches of her head. 



Pour is, I think, the regular complement of eggs ; but I have 

 often found three hard-set, and once or twice five fresh ones. 



Major C. T. Bingham writes: — "Although this bird is common 

 enough at Delhi, I have not procured many nests of it. Personally 

 I have only found one, but three others were marked down for 

 me and I took them with my own hands. The one I found was 

 on the 21st (September, while walking on the ridge. I saw one of 

 these Larks \^ith a straw in its beak, and watched it to the nest, 

 where I found the female sitting on two fresh eggs ; as she flew 

 off I shot her. The nest was a soft pad of very fine grass, placed, 

 like all Larks' nests I have found, on the north side of a stone. 



* 1 found, however, from Mr. Hume's detail measurement-sheet, that one of 

 the eggs here measured was 09 by 0'65, a perfect monster, unduly raising the 

 average. — En. 



