NOTE ON THE SYNONYMY OF SPIZALAUDA. 239 
in the Asiatic Society’s collection. The identification agrees 
with that finally adopted by Jerdon, who, in his first catalogue 
of the Birds of Seuthern India, omitted Alauda malabarica 
altogether, though in his second supplement to the same cata- 
logue (Madras Journal, 1844, XIII., p. 136), he identified with 
it his Aftrafra affinis, a very different species. In his Birds of 
India, he gives a rather imperfect account of the Malabar Lark, 
without measurements, but states that it is closely allied to 
Spizalauda deva. 
In 1867 I procured at Khandalla, the spot where the railway 
from Bombay to Poona reaches the top of the Western Ghats, 
several specimens of a Lark which I failed in identifying satis- 
factorily until I shewed it to Dr. Jerdon, who immediately re- 
cognised it as his Alauda malabarica, and I gave a full descrip- 
tion of it under that name in the Journal of the Asiatic Society 
for 1869. At the same time I doubted its being the same as 
Sonnerat’s species. Further consideration and comparison has 
induced me to coincide in Dr. Jerdon’s opinion, which has 
been generally accepted. 
The history of the smaller form of Spizalauda, described by 
Sykes as dlauda deva, is equally confusing. Jerdon in his 
catalogue identified with it a form of Galerita cristata, and 
Blyth, as we have seen, considered Sykes’ bird the same as his 
(wrongly identified) dAlauda malabarica. But subsequently 
Jerdon obtained a small Lark which he named Mirafra Hay, 
and which was described by Blyth in his Synopsis of Indian 
Fringillide (J. A.S. B., XIIL, p. 959), and included in the se- 
cond supplement to Jerdon’s catalogue. The types originally 
described by Blyth are in the Asiatic Society’s collection, now 
made over to the Indian Museum, and I have compared them 
with the smaller Spizalauda. Jerdon, in his Birds of India, 
correctly identified his Mirafra Hayi with Sykes’ species. Blyth 
in 1855 (J. A.S. B., XXIV., p. 258, note) founded the genus 
Spizalauda on Mirafra Hay. 
In 1870 Mr. Hume, in his notes upon my paper in the Jour- 
nal of the Asiatic Society, expressed his opinion that the bird 
identified by Jerdon, and described by myself as Alauda mala- 
barica, was the true Alauda deva of Sykes, although he ac- 
knowledged that the measurements given by Jerdon were too 
small. He referred (as Blyth once did) the Nilgiri form of A. 
gulgula to A. malabarica,* and proposed the new name of Spi- 
zalauda simillima for the smaller form of Spizalauda. This name 
could not stand in any case even if the true Alauda deva had 
proved to be the larger species, because the types of Mirafra 
flay, preserved in Calcutta, shew that Jerdon had previously 
named the same form. 
* Apud Jerdon. 
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