WHITE-WINGED LARK. 281 
are much more pear-shaped, and the spots are much larger, more boldly 
defined, and not so numerous. They resemble those of the Calandra 
Lark much more closely, as might be expected, but are, on an average, 
smaller. 
Of the food of this bird we know nothing; but it is probably similar to 
that of the Calandra Lark, and consists partly of insects and their larve 
and partly of grain and other seeds, according to the season. 
The adult male White-winged Lark in breeding-plumage has the head 
and ear-coverts pale chestnut ; the lores and the feathers round and behind 
the eye are white ; the remainder of the upper parts are greyish brown with 
a sandy tinge, darkest on the back, each feather with a dark-brown ceutre ; 
the upper tail-coverts are the most rufous, and the dark centre of the 
feathers is little more than a shaft-line; the lesser wing-coverts are 
chestnut; the median and greater ones are chestnut-brown, with pale 
margins; the primaries are dark brown tipped with white, the eighth, 
ninth, and tenth, with the greater part of the inner web and the tip of the 
outer web, white; the terminal half of the secondaries is pure white, the 
basal half brown, and the innermost secondaries are dark chestnut-brown 
with rufous margins. The tail is brownish black, the two centre feathers 
with broad pale chestnut margins, and the next three pairs edged with 
white ; the second pair white on the outer web, and the outermost pair all 
white. The general colour of the underparts is dull white, shading into 
buffish on the breast and into brown on the flanks ; many of the feathers 
on the sides of the throat, and all on the upper breast, have a terminal spot 
of brown. Bill dark horn-coloured above, pale yellowish below ; legs, feet, 
and claws brown; irides brown. The female resembles the male in colour, 
but is duller, and the feathers on the head are pale rufous with dark brown 
centres. After the autumn moult the white tips of the primaries and the 
margins of the innermost secondaries are pale chestnut, and the breast and 
flanks are suffused with buff. Young in first plumage are spotted some- 
what like a young Sky-Lark, but are easily distinguished by their much 
stouter bill, larger size, and the feathers of the upper parts being tipped 
with pure white. 
The White-winged Lark belongs to a little group of large Larks which 
are emphatically Steppe-Larks, and by some ornithologists are placed in a 
separate genus. There are half a dozen species of Melanocoryphe ; but it 
is impossible to find any generic character common to the group, except 
that of size. In the Steppe-Larks the height of the bill at the base is 
‘3 inch, whilst in the Sky-Larks it is only -2 inch, Of all the Steppe- 
Larks the White-winged Lark and the Black Lark are the most likely to 
occur in our islands, because they breed the furthest north and thus come 
within the range of the great stream of migration, which may carry off a 
