644 ALAUDID^. 



the south. Count Casimir Wodzicki states (Naumannia, 1852, 

 ii. p. 68) that it has been often observed in Poland, and that 

 two (of which one was killed) were seen in October, and a third 

 in December, 1851, in Eastern Galizia on grassy swamps. 

 Herr von Csato says (Verhandl. siebenburg. Verein, xiii. 

 p. 174) that he found it at Koncza in Transsylvania, 

 December 24th, 1855. It is not admitted as a German 

 bird by the ornithologists of that country*, and the only 

 other instances of its occurrence in Western Europe are those 

 recorded by Dubois who states (Journ. fiir Orn. 1856, pp. 505, 

 506) that one, now in the collection of M. de Selys, was 

 caught in October 1855 near Liege, and that another was 

 killed near Mechlin, in October 1856, by M. de la Fontaine. 

 Of the habits of this bird we know little. The examples 

 seen in Galizia were said to have been not shy and to utter 

 no sound, behaving much like other Larks, but not running 

 so quickly or readily. According to Eversmann it prefers 

 the levels and heights of the steppe which are most clothed 

 with vegetation. Pallas says that it frequents the roadsides, 

 singing as it flies with a strain somewhat differing from and 

 shorter than a Skylark's, and that it does not often rise aloft 

 though it warbles for a long time while hanging in the air. 

 It pairs about the middle of May and builds its nest of 

 grass on the ground. The eggs are four or more in number, 

 and specimens received from the Volga measure from '94 to 

 79 by from -67 to *6 in. They are of a french-white, some- 

 times closely mottled but oftener sparsely and boldly blotched 

 with dark olive-brown. The more recent evidence of two 

 Russian observers, quoted by Mr. Dresser, is much to the 

 effect of that above given, the only serious discrepancy being 

 that by one of them the breeding-season is put about a 

 month earlier, but that no doubt depends upon the time 



* Bechstein long ago recorded that during a deep snow in March, 1789, he 

 caught, under a sieve at his own door, among a number of Woodlarks, seven 

 examples of what he called Alauda arvensis ruficcps, and it has been thought 

 that these belonged to the present species. But his description, as it seems to the 

 Editor, forbids such an assignment, and still more that, having kept one of his 

 birds alive for a whole year, he convinced himself that it was only a variety of 

 the Skylark, of which Borkhausen also possessed other specimens. 



