1 78 Lieut. R. E. Vaughan and Staff-Surg. K. H. Jones 



numerous^ and as the market price for a young bird is six- 

 pence, all the small boys who tend water-buffaloes are on 

 the look-out for the nests. 



The Chinese take these Larks out into the country and 

 placing the cages on the ground, or on a small mound, one 

 bird will begin to sing, when another Lark will at once 

 commence in rivalry, and so great singing matches are 

 brought about. 



Eggs vary in length from "85 to 'IQ and in breadth from 

 •67 to -57, and average •78X-62. 



MlIlAFRA CANTILLANS. 



The Singing Bush-Lark, which does not appear to have 

 been previously met with in China, was only noticed at 

 Kwei Hsien in Kwang Si, where it abounds in the large 

 grass-plain which is peculiar to that place, and is very 

 different from the surrounding hilly country. 



This bird loves to sit on the top of a boulder, whence it 

 utters its feeble song of a few disconnected notes, and such 

 boulders, by August, grow quite white from the accumu- 

 lation of droppings upon them. At times, however, it sings 

 in the air, but only at a height of from twenty to thirty feet, 

 when, closing its wings, it drops to earth. It is a great 

 skulker in grass and other vegetation. 



The nest is built in a small hollow scratched in the ground, 

 and is externally composed of small biokeu pieces of dry 

 grass and internally of fine rootlets, and is so frail that it 

 is very difficult, or impossil)le, to remove it complete. On 

 July 22 nests were found containing eggs in all stages of 

 incubation and young birds. This species is double-brooded, 

 and the second clutches are very late, because in June the 

 Chinese cut the grass on Kwei Hsien plain. 



Eggs average "78 x '58, and vary in length from "89 to "75 

 and in width from 07 to "56. 



Upupa epops. 



A Hoopoe, which flew on board a small river-steamer 

 near the island of Lintin, between Macao and Hong Kong, 



