m BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Family ALA UDID&. 



THE SKY-LARK. 



Alauda awensis, LINN. 



FOUND during the summer months throughout the whole of Europe; nesting 

 in Scandinavia as far north as lat. 70, whilst in North Africa it breeds 

 sparingly as far south as the slopes of the Atlas Mountains, and in the east, in 

 Russia and Siberia, and at high elevations in Japan, the valley of the Amoor, 

 South-east Mongolia, Turkestan and Persia. In winter it visits China, North-west 

 India, Afghanistan, Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine and Egypt. It has been met 

 with at Madeira, and is reputed to have occurred on Greenland. It has also been 

 introduced into the United States,* New Zealand, and Australia. 



Throughout Great Britain and Ireland, the Sky-Lark is widely distributed, 

 abundant, and (excepting in the extreme north) resident. 



The climatic variations of the Sky-Lark have been separated under several 

 distinctive names, such as A. dulcivox, A. japonica, A. cantarella, A. liopus, A. blak- 

 istoni, A. gulgula, A. australis, A. ccelivox, A. wattersi, and A. sala ; but so many 

 intergrades exist that Ornithologists generally are now content to regard them as 

 one variable species. 



Our Sky-Lark in breeding-plumage has the upper parts golden brown, with 

 blackish centres to the feathers ; edges of greater wing-coverts paler ; the outer- 

 most tail-feather white, with the exception of a blackish streak on the inner web; 

 the second feather white on the outer web only : under parts buffish-white, spotted 

 and streaked with blackish brown on the throat, breast, and flanks ; bill dark 

 brown above, paler below ; feet yellowish-brown ; iris hazel. The female is rather 

 smaller than the male, and has shorter wings, but does not differ in plumage : 

 young birds have broad buff tips to the feathers. After the autumn moult both 

 sexes are more tawny in colouring. 



In order to tell the sex of the Sky-Lark, the London bird-dealers take the bird 

 in the left hand with the tail towards them, and with the right hand draw down 

 the wing until the point of the first long primary touches the tip of the outer- 

 most tail-feather : the wing of the male being distinctly longer than that of the 



* One example was also shot in the Bermudas, in 1850. 



