THE SHORT-TOED LARK. 187 



nest and has had to build again in a hurry. In colouring, the eggs are 

 creamy-whitish freely sprinkled with pale smoky-brown spots and with greyer 

 shell-spots ; these markings are more or less dense in different specimens, 

 sometimes almost concealing the ground-tint and often with a zone of heavier 

 marking near the larger end ; but these variations are common to all the 

 Larks and might almost be taken for granted. 



Jerdon (cf Cat. Birds, E. I. Comp., Vol. II, p. 473) observes :" This bird 

 appears on the table-land of Southern India in October. It associates in vast 

 flocks, frequenting the bare grass-downs, and is fond of damp spots, as at the 

 edge of tanks, etc. ; it also frequents grain-fields, and almost always retires to 

 them for shelter during the heat of the day ; from whence it does not in 

 general issue again till next morning." 



In his "Birds of India," Vol. II, p. 427, he adds the following facts: 

 " It feeds almost entirely on seeds ; both runs and hops on the ground, and 

 has a call-note like that of the real Larks. Towards the end of March in 

 the south, April in the north of India, different flocks often unite into vast 

 troops, containing many thousand birds, and quite darkening the air, so close 

 do they keep together, even when flying. Great numbers are netted in some 

 parts of the country, or taken by bird-lime, or shot ; for when feeding, they 

 keep close to each other. On one occasion, on the cavalry parade ground at 

 Kamptee, I bagged twelve dozen birds after discharging both barrels, and many 

 wounded birds escaped. They get quite fat about this time, and are really 

 very excellent eating, and they are always called Ortolan by Europeans in 

 India. They leave the north of India about the end of April, or beginning 

 of May, and they breed in the steppes of Central Asia, Eastern Russia, and 

 also in Northern Africa, placing their nest on the ground at the edge of a 

 scrub or bush, and laying four to six eggs, usually marked with grey and 

 rufous spots, but sometimes, it is said, unspotted yellow brown." 



It is probable that, as with all the Larks, insects form a large proportion 

 of this bird's food in summer and seed in winter. 



Herr Gstke says (The Birds of Heligoland, pp. 359-360) : " Formerly, 

 hardly a year passed without this pretty little Lark being observed here at 

 the end of May or June, even though only in very solitary instances. 



In former years, when more favourable conditions of weather prevailed, the 

 bird was seen pretty frequently in autumn, sometimes even as late as November. 

 During the time I have been collecting, it has passed through my hands 

 about thirty times ; and besides that, it has been seen and heard, without 

 being killed, on an equal number of occasions. 



