168 ALAUDIN^E. ANTHUS. 



nestles on the ground, laying four or five eggs, which vary 

 much in size and colour, but average nine-twelfths in length, 

 and seven-twelfths in breadth, and are usually purplish or 

 greyish-white, with spots, or dots, or blotches of dark red or 

 purplish-brown. 



Meadow Lark. Short-heeled Field Lark. 



Alauda trivialis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 288. Anthus arbo- 

 reus, Temm. Man. d'Ornith. i. 271. Anthus arboreus, Tree 

 Pipit, MacGillivray, Brit. Birds, ii. 188. 



100. ANTHUS OBSCURUS. DUSKY OR SHORE PIPIT. 



Upper parts olivaceous, obscurely streaked with dusky ; 

 a short yellowish band behind the eye ; lower parts yellowish- 

 grey ; outer tail-feather pale grey in the terminal half of the 

 outer web and the tip of the inner ; the neck, sides, and fore 

 part of the breast marked with oblong, undecided dusky, or oli- 

 vaceous spots; the first and second quills longest ; the hind claw 

 moderately arched, about the same length as the first joint. 

 In summer, when the margins of the feathers are abraded, the 

 upper parts are of a nearly uniform greyish-brown tint. The 

 young have the feathers of the upper parts dark brown, edged 

 with oil-green, the lower parts more yellow than in the adult, 

 and all streaked with olive-brown, except the abdomen. 



Male, 6 T ^, 10J, 3 A, H, H> i> iV Female, 6/ , 10J. 



This species, which is considerably larger, and of duller 

 tints, than the preceding, is permanently resident, and gene- 

 rally distributed, but entirely confined to the sea-shore. It 

 resembles the other species in its habits. The nest is placed 

 on a grassy bank, or among moss, in some rocky place on the 

 coast. The eggs, four or five, are ten-twelfths and a half long, 

 eight- twelfths broad, greyish, or greenish-grey, freckled with 

 purplish-grey. It was first described by Latham and Lewin 

 under the name of Dusky-Lark, Alauda obscura, afterwards by 

 Montagu under that of Alauda petrosa, or Rock-Lark. Being 

 the same species as Anthus aguaticus of Temminck, that 

 name was usually given to it ; but latterly that ornithologist 

 finds that he has confounded two distinct species, and proposes 

 adopting for the present that of Anthus obscurus, for the first 

 application of which he refers to Gmelin, the " bungling com- 

 piler," as some writers on birds, not very politely, but truly 

 calls him. Now, perhaps, Montagu was the first who very 

 clearly and intelligibly distinguished and described the bird ; 

 and yet I think Latham's brief description of it is better than 

 the specific characters of hundreds of birds, as given by au- 



