94 How to Sex Cage Birds. 



Algerian Shore-Lark (Otocorys bilopha). 



The Museum appears not to possess sexed examples, hut there is 

 no doubt that the structural differences are similar to those in the 

 European species. 



Clot-bey Lark (Rhamphocorys clot-bey). 



As the Museum Catalogue does not distinguish the sexes of this 

 bird, and it does not come into Shelley's Birds of Africa, I asked 

 Mr Seth-Smith to look it up in his copy of Whitaker's Birds of 

 Tunisia, and he courteously forwarded the following extract: — 

 " Adult female paler than the male and more uniformly isabelline 

 in its coloration, with less black on the under parts, and slightly 

 smaller in size" (vol. i. p. 288). 



I don't suppose cither of the preceding birds is very frequently 

 imported. 



White-tieaded Bullfinch Lark (Pyrrhulauda verticalis). 



Captain Shelley describes no differences of measurement in the 

 sexes. Being essentially a ground-bird, chiefly taking to flight 

 when alarmed, one would hardly expert it to develop its wings and 

 chest-muscles like the soaring Larks. Unlike the cock, which has 

 a black head, Captain Shelley thus describes the hen: "Above 

 pale sandy brown, with a few dark shaft stripes on the crown ; 

 back, wings, and tail as in the males ; only the axillaries and under 

 wing-coverts are more dusky, and the latter have a broad outer 

 band of buff, sides of head huff, with broad pale brown shaft-stripes 

 to the ear-coverts ; throat white; under surface of body buff, with 

 a few brown shaft-stripes" (Birds of Africa, vol. iii. p. 84). 



Short-toed Lark (Calandrefla brachydacti/la). 



The sexes are of the same length, but both wing and tail in the 

 hen are longer than in the cock. this would certainly give her the 

 advantage in flight, so that one would expect migrating flocks of 

 hens to arrive at their breeding-grounds earlier than the cocks, and 

 that they selected their husbands rather than the reverse. In 

 addition to these structural differences, Dr Sharpe says that C- 

 brachydactyla female differs from the male in having "hardly any 

 streaks on the fore-neck, the lateral patch on which is also smaller" 

 {Catalogue of Birds, vol. xiii. p. 582). 



Andalusian Short-toed Lark (Alaudula bcetica). 



Seebohm and Sharpe both regard this as a race of A. pispoletta, 

 the Short-toed Lark of Asia Minor, Southern Russia, and Central 

 Asia. The female differs from the male in being slightly smaller, 

 but with the same length of wing and a much shorter tail ; in 

 plumage she appears not to differ, 



