262 BRITISH BIRDS. 
have been obtained at different times in Cornwall. Two were procured 
near Penzance, in September 1846 (Rodd, ‘ Zoologist,’ 1846, p. 1497), and 
another was obtained in the same neighbourhood on the 24th of October, 
1850 (Rodd, ‘ Zoologist,’ 1851, p. 3033). The fourth was captured near 
Falmouth in the latter part of 1865, and was killed by Mr. Gill of that 
town (Bullmore, ‘Cornish Fauna,’ p. 20) ; and on the 12th of June, 1880, 
the fifth example was shot in a garden at Helston, in Cornwall (Hart, 
‘Zoologist,’ 1880, p. 302). This bird is also said to have occurred near 
Blackheath (Hutchinson, ‘ Zoologist, 1868, p. 1167), at Macclesfield 
(Painter, ‘Nature,’ 1878, ix. p. 132), and on the Isle of Wight (Hadfield, 
‘Zoologist, 1877, p. 450). 
The examples of this species which have been obtained in this country 
have chiefly occurred in autumn, and have probably been migrants from 
South Sweden or Denmark vid Heligoland; but an alleged instance of 
the Crested Lark having bred near Cambridge in 1881 is recorded (Harting, 
‘ Zoologist,’ 1883, p. 178). This bird does not appear to have occurred in 
Scotland. 
The Crested Lark is a common though local resident in Central and 
Southern Europe; it does not occur in Norway, and is very rare in South 
Sweden, but it occasionally strays as far north as Upsala, in lat. 60°. In 
Russia it has occurred at St. Petersburg (lat. 60°) in the west, and breeds 
up to lat. 54° in the east. It has not occurred in Siberia, but is a resident 
in Palestine, Asia Minor, Persia, Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, 
and North-west India. Prjevalsky records it from South-east Mongolia, 
and it is a vesident in North China, and probably also in Tibet. It isa 
resident in Europe south of the Baltic, and in North Africa as far south 
as Abyssinia. In winter its numbers are decreased in the northern and 
increased in the southern portions of its range. 
The Crested Lark varies considerably both in size, colour, and dimensions 
of bill; but the variations appear to be purely protective, and are referable 
to the nature of the country on which the birds are found rather than 
to differences of geographical distribution. The extreme desert form, 
A. cristata var. isabellina, has hitherto only been recorded from the desert 
regions of North Africa. A slightly less rufous, but still very sandy- 
coloured form, A. cristata var. magna, is found in Turkestan, Scinde, 
Algeria, and elsewhere on semd-desert ground. In Algeria the bill of this 
form is occasionally more or less elongated, constituting a race worthy of 
recognition as 4. cristata var. macrorhyncha, The typical form, which is 
greyer, is principally found in Europe; but intermediate forms between it _ 
and the semi-desert form occur in India. Chinese examples, 4. cristata 
var. leautungensis, are generally reddish brown, but some are scarcely dis- 
tinguishable from the semi-desert form. According to Heuglin, all these 
varieties of coloration are found at different elevations in Abyssinia. 
