ALAUDINZA. 281°. 
Tue Lirrte SanpD Lark. ~ 
‘Length, g, 5:9 to 6, ¢, 56 to 57; expanse, ¢,10°4to 11, 9, 
10 to 10°5; wing, g, 3:3 to 3:5, 2,3°05 to32; tail, @ & 9,22; 
bill at front, g, 0°35 to 0°38, 92, 0°32 to 038. 
Bill greyish-slate, brownish on culmen and at tip, yellow at 
base beneath; irides pale-brown; legs fleshy-brown, dusky at 
joints. 
j In the winter the whole upper surface is very pale-grey or 
whity-brown, all the feathers narrowly centred with grey-brown, 
so as to produce a striated appearance. There is in many speci- 
mens a more or less perceptible, but still very faint, rufous tinge 
on the back ; the wings are pale-brown, the outer webs of the 
first primaries nearly entirely cream-color, the other primaries 
narrowly tipped and margined white ; secondaries more broadly ; 
tertiaries and coverts still more broadly margined with fulvous 
or slightly greyish-white ; the central tail-feathers brown, some- 
what conspicuously margined with brownish or fulvous-white ; 
the exterior tail-feathers on either side wholly white, except a 
dark-brown stripe down the inner margin of the inner web; the 
next feather with the whole exterior web pure white; interior 
web dark-brown; other tail-feathers dark-brown, very narrowly 
margined with dull white ; the lores and a stripe over and under 
the eye white or rufescent-white ; a very narrow grey line through 
the centre of the lores only noticeable in very good specimens or 
in the fresh bird; ear-coverts mingled grey-brown and fulvous- 
white, and usually exhibiting a somewhat darker spot just behind 
and below the posterior angle of the eye ; the whole lower parts 
white, with, in some, a very faint rufescent tinge on the breast, 
sides, and flanks, and with numerous narrow or linear darkish- 
brown spots on the breast, very strongly marked, conspicuous in 
some specimens, reduced almost to speckles in other birds; the 
flanks and sides are faintly tinged with brown, or in some pale 
rufescent. 
The Little Sand Lark is a permanent resident in Sind. It does 
not occur elsewhere within our limits. 
Genus, Spizalauda, Blyth. 
Bill as in Alauda, 7.e., with the nostrils protected by bristles, 
but thicker and Mirafra-like in its form ; wings long, with the 
first quill minute, the next four about equal and longest, as in 
the true Larks ; tertiaries lengthened; hind-toe and claw mode- 
rately developed; claws longer than in Mirafra ; coronal feathers 
lengthened, and forming a pointed crest. 
Spizalauda deva, Sykes. 
765.—-Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 432; Butler, Deccan ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 418 ; Swinhoe and Barnes, Central 
India; Ibis, 1885, p. 130. 
