234 ALAUDID^E CERTHILAUDA 



Iris dark brown ; bill brown ; legs and feet yellowish. 



Length 7-50 ; wing 3-90 ; tail 3-10 ; tarsus 1-12 ; culmen 1-00. 



Adult female. Eesembles the male in plumage. 



Distribution. The greater part of Cape Colony and Natal. 

 Common on the Cape Flats and in the Western districts of Cape 

 Colony becoming rarer in Eastern Cape Colony and Natal. 



Habits. This species is almost invariably met with in pairs, 

 never, so far as my observations go, in flocks. It frequents both 

 sandy flats overgrown with brushwood and grassy plains and 

 hilltops, and, although it spends most of its time in running along 

 the ground, it not unfrequently perches on the tops of bushes, 

 failing these, on ant-hills or hillocks. It feeds both on insects 

 and small seeds. Its note is a loud, prolonged, and clear whistle. 



In the neighbourhood of Cape Town these Larks breed during 

 the months of September and October. A cup-shaped nest of dry 

 grass, lined with finer grass and hairs, is constructed in a hollow 

 scratched by the bird at the side of a stone or tuft of grass, some- 

 times under the edge of a low bush ; in this three eggs are deposited. 

 These vary a good deal in colour, but are usually pale bluish-white 

 or dull white, more or less mottled and freckled with various shades 

 of reddish and purplish-brown. They measure 0-90 x 0-67. 



C/^o/arTyv^a^ c^t^rLf^^^JU^ 6LL<6~* - * < &+* 

 134. Certhilauda rufula. Bufous Long-billed Lark. 



Anthus rufulus, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. Avi, p. 494 (1818). 



Certhilauda garrula, Smith, III. Zool. 8. Afr., Aves, pi. 106, fig. 1 

 (1846) ; Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 216 (1867) ; Ayres, Ibis, 1869, p. 295, 

 1871, p. 268 ; Sliarpe, P. Z. 8. 1874, p. 618 ; id. ed. Layard s B. S. 

 Afr., p. 498 (1884). 



Certhilauda rufula, Sliarpe, Cat. Afr. B. p. 71 (1871) ; Gurney in 

 Anderssorts B. Damara Land, p. 201 (1872); Sharpe, P. Z. S., 

 1874, p. 618 ; id. ed. Layard s B. S. Afr. p. 496 (1884) ; Ayres, Ibis, 

 1880, p. 264 ; Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xiii, p. 515 (1890) ; Shelley, B. 

 Afr. i, p. 13 (1896). 



Description. Adult male. Above, bright rufous streaked in- 

 distinctly with brown, many feathers edged with buff; wing-coverts 

 brown edged with white ; quills brownish, the secondaries with 

 rufous margins, the primaries with white tips ; rump and upper 

 tail-coverts rufous ; tail black, rufous towards the base, the two 

 centre feathers rufous with brown centres and not spotted, the 

 remaining feathers with a white spot at the end, the outermost 



