Mr. W. T. Blanford on 'Stray Feathers.' 213 



such a periodical supplies a real want or not ; but it is only 

 right to point out that the 'Proceedings' of the Asiatic So- 

 ciety of Bengal have, for some years past, been published re- 

 gularly every month *, and that all short papers received by the 

 Society are therein printed, so that, even without Mr. Hume's 

 periodical, there is no difficulty in securing the prompt pub- 

 lication in India of all descriptions of new species. 



Proceeding to the different papers in detail, I may perhaps be 

 allowed first to refer to one which relates to a species of Horned 

 Lark, described by myself from Sikkim, and to ask pardon 

 for my own sins of commission. After reading Mr. Hume's 

 account, and after the examination of several specimens of Oto- 

 corys longirostris in Mr. Gould's collection and elsewhere, I 

 think it highly probable that 0. elwesi, described by me in the 

 P. A. S. B. 1871, p. 227 (and more fully in J. A. S. B. 1872, 

 pt. ii. p. 62), is merely a variety of the first-named species. 

 The differences in coloration are certainly, as stated by Mr. 

 Hume, merely seasonal ; and so is, I believe, the change in 

 the tarsus from brown to black ; for I find in a large series of 

 O. penicillata collected in Persia and lying before me, that 

 there is a perceptible distinction in the colour of the legs 

 between young birds and adults, although the difference is 

 much less than in the case of 0. longirostris and 0. elwesi. 

 That the bill of a Lark should vary in length from 0*36 to 0*6 

 inch is certainly very startling ; and I must say that the spe- 

 cimens of Otocorys belonging to this form which I have 

 hitherto seen from Central Asia, Lake Baikal, &c. belong to 

 the short-billed type ; but still variation appears to be the rule, 

 and considerable difference in dimensions is common amongst 

 Larks, as has been shown by Sharpe and Dresser in their 

 article on Alauda arvensis in the ' Birds of Europe,' and as 

 appears to be the case in specimens of Galerida cristata which 

 I have before me. 



It is only just to Mr. Hume to admit that, as he states in 

 ' Stray Feathers/ he wrote to me in 1871 to tell me that the 

 Sikkim Horned Lark was identical with that from Cashmere ; 



* Except for two months in the autumn, in which the Society does not 

 meet. 



