510 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
black centres to the feathers, and the under surface is likewise 
deep sandy rufous with white throat and triangular chest spots 
(wing, 3°0), This specimen was shot at Potchefstroom by Mr. Ayres, 
on the 16th of June, 1872, and is a female. Another female, killed 
by Mr. Andersson at Ondonga on the Ist of November, 1867, is in 
what I take to be the winter dress of the bird. The general colour 
is a sandy buff, with no rufous tinge to speak of, but with narrow 
blackish centres to the feathers, and the under surface is buffy white 
tinged with sandy rufous on the chest, which is streaked with 
narrow little spots of blackish brown: the throat and sides of the 
face are white, with a blackish malar stripe forming an indistinct 
moustache. We think there can be no doubt of this being the winter 
plumage of A. conirostris. The difference of being more mealy is 
usual in the winter dress of Larks, and the proportions fairly agree 
(wing, 2°85; tarsus, 0°75). T'wo male specimens are in the British 
Museum from the Hountop River, Great Namaqua Land, shot by 
Mr. Andersson on the 3rd of June, 1862. These birds are inter- 
mediate between the winter and summer specimens described. 
They are rather mealy in appearance, but the dark centres to the 
feathers of the upper surface are becoming somewhat pronounced, 
and several of the dark chest-spots are developing, as if it appeared 
that the summer plumage is gained by the wearing off of the sandy 
margins. These birds have the wing 2°9—3-0 inches, and the tarsus 
0°75. 
The white on the outer tail-feathers varies very much. In a 
young specimen it occupies the outer web and half of the inner one, 
as it does also in Wahlberg’s Transvaal skin and the Ondonga 
female: but in the full-plumaged bird in Mr. Gurney’s collection, 
and in both the Namaqua examples the sandy white is confined to 
the outer web and forms a narrow margin to the tail. 
Young.—Above dark brown, the feathers washed with sandy 
colour and tipped with white, the hind neck inclining to ashy 
grey, the white tips almost imperceptible ; wing-coverts dull brown, 
margined with sand colour and ending in a white tip; quills and 
tail much as in adult, but inclining to whitish at the tip of the 
feathers ; lores dusky blackish; sides of face nearly uniform brown, 
with a blackish streak running along the upper margin of the ear- 
coverts and down the cheeks; under surface pale isabelline, the 
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