THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 357 



161. Wood Lark [HEIDELERCHE]. 

 ALAUDA ARBOREA, Linn. 



Heligolandish : Piddl name onomatopoeic, after the call-note. 

 Alauda arborea. Naumann, iv. 102. 

 Wood Lark. Dresser, iv. 321. 



Alouette lulu. Temminck, Manuel, i. 282, iii. 203. 



This elegant and harmless little bird visits Heligoland only in 

 small numbers ; it is quite exceptional to see more than from three 

 to five individuals together, and only on one occasion have I met 

 with a larger number: this was during the powerful migration- 

 stream of species from the far East in the autumn of 1847, 

 when there occurred on the 13th of November a flock of at 

 least fifty or sixty of these birds. It is their habit to run quietly 

 about on the arable land, and one only notices their presence, 

 when they are accidentally startled, by their merry and melodious 

 call-note 'Til piddl Tii piddl' uttered from an inconsiderable 

 height in the air. 



One cannot help being fond of this gentle, confiding little 

 creature, and no one on the island thinks of doing it any harm 

 unless perhaps an accident should bring it under the primitive net 

 of one of our youthful fowlers, which happens, however, extremely 

 rarely. 



Though by no means what one would call a robust bird, it can 

 nevertheless not have a feeble constitution, because it commences 

 its migration while the weather is generally still raw as early as 

 the end of February and continues it through March. Its autumn 

 migration takes place chiefly in October and November, but 

 scattered young birds also arrive as early as September. All the 

 birds appear to travel by day, none having as yet been met with 

 during the night-captures at the lantern of the lighthouse nor in 

 the fields. The song, which our great master Naumann describes 

 in such rapturous terms, has unfortunately never yet been heard 

 here. 



This bird breeds in central and southern Europe, from Portugal 

 to the Ural, though in the former country as well as in Spain only 

 in small numbers. In the north, solitary examples are still met with 

 in southern Scandinavia ; while in the south its range seems to 

 extend as far as Palestine, Tristram having found it nesting in that 

 country. 



