THE CALANDRA LARK. 



151 



Soft parts. Bill yellow, tip blackish ; legs and feet black ; 

 iris dark brown. 



CHARACTERS. No subspecies. Black colour of male, and large 

 size, thick bill and absence of white feathers in tail and wing, and 

 blackish-brown axillaries and under-wing of female distinguish 

 it from other Larks. 



BREEDING-HABITS. Nests on ground near salt-marshes. Nest. In 

 hollow on ground, lined with dead grasses. Eggs. 4 rarely 5, much 

 like Calandra Lark's, but perhaps less boldly marked; ground 

 greyish-white, marbled and blotched with ochreous brown and 

 ashy, chiefly towards big end. Average of 23 eggs, 25.1 X 18.12mm. 

 Breeding-season. First half May. Incubation. Period, etc., not 

 precisely known. 

 FOOD. Mainly seeds. 



DISTRIBUTION. England. Small party on borders of Sussex and 

 Kent, January, 1907, following being shot : male, near Pevensey 

 (Sussex) Jan. 29 ; female, near Lydd (Kent) Jan. 31 ; male, near 

 Lydd, Feb. 18 ; male, Rye (Sussex) Feb. 16 (ut supra). Female, 

 Westfield (Sussex) Jan. 30, 1915 and another Feb. 1, also a male seen 

 Hollington, St. Leonards, early in Jan. (T. Parkin, Brit. B., ix, p. 68). 

 DISTRIBUTION. Abroad. From west Siberia and Turkestan to 

 the Lower Volga. In winter more or less vagrant, and has appeared 

 in the Talysh plains, Heligoland, Galizia, Belgium, and Italy. 



MELANOCORYPHA CALANDRA 



60. Melanocorypha calandra calandra (-L.). THE 

 CALANDRA LARK. 



ALAUDA CALANDRA Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. xn, i, p. 288 (1766 



" Habitat circa Pyrenaeos.") 



Melanocorypha c. calandra, J. B. Nichols, Brit. B., x, p. 254. 



DESCRIPTION. Adult 

 male and female. 

 Winter. Crown, hind- 

 neck, mantle, scapulars, 

 back and upper tail- 

 coverts brown to grey- 

 ish brown, each feather 

 mesially streaked black- 

 brown very broadly on 

 mantle, less broadly on 

 crown, and narrowly 

 on hind -neck ; feathers 



of centre of mantle Calandra Lark <**"* 



with rather conspicuous whitish-brown edges, most feathers 

 of upper-parts in very fresh plumage with very narrow 



