ALAUDA. 253 



Subfamily ALAUDIN.E, on LARKS. _ 



The Larks are a small group of birds which may at once be distin- 

 guished from all the other subfamilies of the Passeridae by the scutellations 

 at the back as well as the front of the tarsus. In what appear to be old 

 birds these scutellations are, however, almost obsolete. The hind claw is 

 very slightly curved, and frequently much elongated. The wings are long 

 and pointed, the second, third, and fourth primaries being nearly equal in 

 length. The first primary is generally very minute, but in some genera it 

 is more developed. The bill varies greatly in this subfamily, being in 

 some genera almost as slender as in the Tree-Creeper, whilst in others it 

 rivals in stoutness the bill of the Pine-Grosbeak. In spite of the scutella- 

 tions of the back of the tarsus, there can be little doubt that the Larks 

 are very closely related to the Pipits, though they further differ from those 

 birds by having no spring moult, the breeding-plumage, where it differs 

 from that of winter, being assumed by casting the ends of the feathers. 

 Young in first plumage do not resemble their parents, but are spotted all 

 over. The Larks appear to bear the same relation to the Pipits that the 

 Thrushes do to the Warblers. 



There are probably about seventy species of Larks, which are divisible 

 into several genera*, one only of which is represented in Europe. The 

 Larks belong to the Old World, and are chiefly confined to the Palaearctic, 

 Ethiopian, and Oriental Regions. One of the Palsearctic species is cir- 

 cumpolar, and each of the Australian, Neotropical, and Nearctic Regions 

 contains a solitary species. 



Genus ALAUDA. 



The genus Alauda was included by Linnaeus, in 1766, in the twelfth 

 edition of his ' Systema Naturae/ vol. i. p. 287, the Sky-Lark (the Alauda 

 alauda of Brisson) having been by common consent admitted to be the 

 type. 



* In the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London ' for 1874 (pp. 614-651) my 

 friend Mr. Bowdler Sharpe published an elaborate article on the Larks of Southern Africa. 

 It is written with all the careful elaboration of the details of the colours of the plumage 



