Notes on the Occurrence of the Bccl-breasted Lark. 215 



and which had been killed in the neighbourhood of his resi- 

 dence. It was sent to me for identification, and in the 

 absence of such notes as I had hoped to be able to lay before 

 the Society from the pen of Dr Macdowall, I merely submit 

 the specimen for inspection, with a few remarks on the 

 recorded instances of the supposed occurrence of the species 

 outside its natural habitat — the coast of Chili — from which 

 it has hitherto been known to wander southwards only round 

 Cape Horn as far as the Falkland Islands. 



Mr Baird states in his work on North American birds, that 

 " a single specimen of the red-breasted lark was obtained in 

 San Francisco by Mr E. D. Cutts of the Coast Survey from a 

 collector, who asserted positively that it had been shot by 

 him in San Francisco county. It is likewise mentioned in the 

 ' Voyage de Venus ' (Zoologie, I., 1855, 203), as having been 

 shot at Monterey by Dr Neboux, surgeon of the expedition. 

 There is still some uncertainty, however, as to whether it be 

 really entitled to a place in the fauna of the United States, 

 as ]\Ir Cutts may have been deceived by his informant, and 

 the indications of the zoologists of the ' Venus ' as to the 

 existence of other species of vertebrata in California are cer- 

 tainly erroneous, owing, doubtless, to accidental transposition 

 of labels." From these remarks by Mr Baird, whose work is 

 one of the most recent on N'ortli American ornithology, it 

 will be judged that the Sturnclla militaris was admitted by 

 him with great hesitation. It is not included in the late Mr 

 Cassin's " Birds of California and Texas," and Dr Elliot Coues, 

 in his " Key to Xorth American Birds," published in 1872, 

 disposes of the species by saying, " It does not appear that 

 the red-breasted lark (Trujncdis militaris) was ever taken in 

 this country. It is a South American species resembling 

 ours, but with red in place of yellow." 



Mr Salvin, who has written many important papers in the 

 Jbis on the ornithology of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, 

 and Costa Pdca, the results of close personal research, has 

 informed me, through Professor Newton of Cambridge, that 

 this bird is not found in any part of Central America ; that 

 it belongs to the south-west coast — Chili, etc. — but goes 

 round Cape Horn, as has been already said, as far as the 



