CERTHILAUDA ALA.UDIPES. '21 



meal. The love-call of the male during the breeding-season 

 has the ring of a clarion in it, and can be heard at a great 

 distance. At this call, uttered three or four times in rapid 

 succession, the female comes to his side, and he then shoots 

 up into the air above her head uttering the whole time his 

 note, which becomes tremulous as the flight upward is 

 completed, and then he drops down again with a float-like 

 motion of the wings almost upon the head of his consort." 



The most southern locality known to me for this species 

 is the Berbera plains of Somaliland, where my friends, Mr. 

 Lort Phillips and Mr. Hawker, collected specimens in January 

 and February. The former naturalist writes : " These strange 

 Desert-birds were very plentiful on the Berbera Plain in 

 January, and as they were invariably met with in pairs, they 

 may have been breeding. Their colouring so exactly matches 

 that of the sand and stones among which they live, that they 

 might easily escape observation altogether, were it not for 

 the long-drawn melodious note frequently uttered. "When 

 followed they run with the greatest swiftness, instead of taking 

 to flight." Mr. Hawker found these birds generally on the 

 salt-flats near the sea shore, where Mr. A. B. Pease considers 

 them to be common and saw them feeding there by moonlight. 



The species frequents the most desert portions of the 

 land on each side of the Red Sea. From Zoulla in Abyssinia, 

 there are six specimens in the British Museum, including the 

 type of Alsemon jessei, Finsch. The specimens in Riippell's 

 collection came from Kordofan, Dongola and Arabia. Heuglin 

 generally met with these Larks in pairs along the caravan 

 routes, and likens their short weak flight to that of the 

 Hoopoe, but when on the ground running they resembled the 

 Cream-coloured Courser, which latter bird it strongly reminded 

 me of when I saw it in Egypt hurrying along the ground 

 without stopping, till I lost sight of it in the distance on the 

 desert sand. 



