ALAUDIN&. 283 
Bill horny-brown, pale beneath ; irides dark-brown ; legs fleshy- 
brown. 
Above the feathers are dark-brown, with fulvous margins; 
beneath fulvescent-white, deeper on the breast, and spotted or 
streaked with dusky ; ear-coverts spotted and tipped dusky; a 
pale eye-streak ; the erectile feathers of the head moderately 
elongated. Some specimens have a rufous tinge on the upper 
tail-coverts, and also margining the large quills, more especially 
the secondaries, while the coverts are edged with grey; the tail 
has the outermost feather almost wholly fulvescent white, and 
the penultimate one has its outer web, and sometimes the tip of 
the inner web of the same tint. 
The Indian Sky Lark occurs in suitable places throughout the 
region. It is a permanent resident, breeding about the commence- 
ment of May; the nest, a shallow cup, composed of grass stems, 
is placed in a depression, scratched by the birds under the shelter 
of a clod of earth or tuft of grass. 
The eggs, four or five in number, are moderately elongated or 
broadish ovals; they vary much in coloring, but are mostly of two 
types; the first or commonest has a creamy-white ground, pro- 
fusely speckled and freckled with excessively fine specks and spots 
of dull purplish-grey and pale brownish-yellow ; in the second 
type the color is white, and the markings are much darker in 
shade. They measure 0°8 inches in length by 0°61 in breadth, 
Genus, Galerida, Bove. 
Bill lengthened, slightly curved ; wings with the first primary, 
moderately developed, the next four sub-equal, the second slightly 
shorter ; toes and hind-claws less elongated than in Alauda; an 
erectile, lengthened and pointed crest on the top the head: 
Galerida cristata, Lin. 
769.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 436; Butler, Guzerat ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. IV, p. 2; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology 
of Sind, p. 198. 
THE LARGE CRESTED LARK. 
Length, 7°25 to 75; wing, 4 to 4°25; tail, 2°5 to 2°75; tarsus, 1; 
bill at front, 0°75. ; 
Bill yellowish ; irides dark-brown ; legs pale-brown. 
Pale earthy or. sandy-brown, rufescent on the feathers of the 
upper parts, with pale dusky mesial streaks ; the feathers of the 
crest alone, with dark-brown centres ; wings somewhat rufescent ; 
upper tail-coverts the same as are the lower surfaces of the wings 
and tail; outermost tail-feathers rufescent white, the next with 
a border on its outer web, the four middle ones colored like the 
back, and the rest of the tail blackish ; supercilia and lower parts 
sullied white, with a few brown streaks on the breast, 
The Large Crested Lark is a common permanent resident 
