ALAUDA FERRUGINEA.-Smith.* 



AvES. — Plate XXIX. (Male.) 



A. supra fcrruginca, infra sordide alba; guU\, gutture pectorcijue nigro-brunneo strigatis ; superciliis sub- 

 ochrcis ; reniigibus bruimeis ; rcctricibus uigro-bruuiieis, quatuor exteniis, externe rufo-niarginatis, 

 duabiis niediis ferrugineis ; rostro brunneo, mandibida versus basin sub-flava ; pedibus flavo-brunueis ; 

 oculis brunneis. 



LoxGiTi'Do corporis cum capito 4 unc. 3 lin. ; caudse 3 unc. 2 lin. 



Colour. — The upper and lateral parts of the head, the back and sides of 

 neck, the back, rump, shoulders, scapulars, two or three innermost tertiaries, 

 and two centre tail-feathers, bright ferrugineous red ; the under parts dull- 

 white, the breast and belly faintly tinted with butf-orange, and the throat, 

 breast, and flanks, variegated with oblong dark-brown spots— one spot 

 towards the point of each feather. The white of the chin is faintly mottled 

 with some dusky tints, and the commencement of the throat is marguied 

 on each side by a blackish line, which commences at the base of the lower 

 mandible, and terminates below the points of the ear-coverts. Eye-brows 

 dirty ochre-yellow. The lesser wing coverts, the primary and secondary 

 quill coverts, the primary and secondary quill feathers, and a stripe along 

 the middle of the two or three innermost of the tertiaries, light uniber-brown ; 

 the lesser coverts are edged and tipt with ferrugineous passing into white, 

 and the quill coverts, together with the secondary quills and the primaries 

 towards their base, edged externally with rusty white. Tail, with the 

 exception of the two feathers already mentioned, dark umber-brown ; the 

 outermost feather of each side broadly edged externally with rufous white, and 

 the one next in succession narrowly with the same colour. Bill dark yellowish 



* Such naturalists as find characters by which the thick-billed Larks may be separated from those in 

 which the bill is less developed, would probably place this species with the former. We confess our 

 inability to discover fixed characters by which the limits of the two groupes could be defined, and as we 

 have examined man}- species which we could nut with certainty refer to cither, provided the division 

 was to be adnj.ted, wc think it better to include both kinds under Ahnaln. 



