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Mr. W. E. Thschemaker,



species. For all that, the Crested Lark stands out a well-marked

type—in fact the type of its genus.


Its habits also naturally vary with locality. For instance,

Irby could never find any evidence that this species migrated,

even at so favourable a station for observing migrants as Gibraltar,

but Oates tells us that the great majority of those vast multi¬

tudes of Crested Laiks that during the cold season meet us on

every bare plain and every stubble-field, throughout the drier

and better cultivated portions of Continental India at any rate,

are, I am convinced, migratory. A certain number, however,

unquestionably remain to breed.” The only time that I have

personally come across this species in a state of freedom was on

a high road near the little village of Mougins in the south of

France and roads appear to be a favourite resort for this bird and

have earned for it its Spanish name of Carretera . It even nests

on roads. Irby says —“ One nest which I found was placed

between the tracks of a much frequented road near Tangier, in

such a position that every passing animal must have touched the

small clump of grass under which the nest was built. Now, was

this site chosen because snakes, lizards and other vermin were

less likely to come on the beaten track ? ” We find an interesting

parallel to this in Oates. A correspondent from the Saliarunpoor

district in India states that he found “one nest in the middle of

a village-cart track near a low bush between the wheel-tracks.”

The cause of this habit may well be that suggested by Irby for,

in a note supplied by a correspondent in Scinde, we find the

following :— “ It is a wonder to me how many of the eggs of this

species are ever hatched, as out of many dozens of nests, which

I left this year with single eggs in them to take later on, I found

invariably on returning a day or two after that the nests were

empty. What it is that takes the eggs I do not know (possibly

foxes, as I saw their ‘pugs’) but, whatever animal it is, it must

be an uncommonly clever nest-seeker as hardly an egg seems to

escape notice.” However the Carietera does not restrict itself to

roads and cultivated districts: it may be seen, according to Irby,

“ on the seashore running about like aSanderling within a yard

of the water ” and also on the verge of the trackless Sahara.


From an avicultural point of view the Crested Lark has



