DESERT LARK. 113 



Tristram gives the names of "Pale Desert Lark" and "Little Desert 

 Lark" to two other North African species, while we have C. desertorum 

 applied to the Bifasciated Lark. Then again, while Schlegel, Degland, 

 and others refer the present bird to the Alauda deserti of Lichtenstein, 

 Captain Loche, in his "Catalogue of Algerian Birds," following- 

 Bonaparte, makes the latter a distinct species, under the name of 

 Annomanes deserti. Then again we have the name Annomanes 

 isabellina, applied to the subject of the present notice by Prince Ch. 

 Bonaparte, while he gives to a closely-allied species the name of 

 Galerida isabellina. Temminck described our bird as Alauda isabellina, 

 while Eiippell gave the same designation to the Galerida isabellina of 

 Bonaparte. It must therefore be strictly borne in mind that the 

 species found in Europe is the Alauda isabellina of Temminck, and 

 the Desert Lark of Tristram. Mr. Dresser having given the name 

 isabellina to a crested Lark in his "Birds of Europe," I have 

 adopted Gmelin's name of "lusitania" for the present species. 



This beautiful and elegant species was first described as European 

 by Temminck, in the last edition of his "Manual," in 1840. Its 

 European localities are Greece, south of Spain and Portugal. It 

 inhabits also Egypt, Arabia, and the north of Africa. 



For a knowledge of its habits, hitherto recorded as unknown, we 

 are indebted to Mr. Tristram, ("Ibis," vol. i, p. 242,) who writes:— 

 "A. isabellina, Temminck, occurs first on leaving the Hauts Plateaux 

 in small numbers, but is more plentiful further south, inhabiting the 

 open plains, where it is difficult to conceive how it finds subsistence. 

 Its lateral range is wide. I have obtained it from the frontiers of 

 Morocco to Arabia Petrasa. It is sedentary, and breeds both in the 

 Algerian Sahara and the wilderness of Jucleea, in both which localities 

 I have taken the nest, neatly formed of grass in a depression under a 

 tuft of weeds, and with four eggs, in size nearly equal to those of A. 

 cristata, but never so elongated; measuring eleven lines by eight, of a 

 rich cream-colour, blotched especially towards the large end with brown 

 and red spots. In its habits this very distinct species exhibits so far 

 as I am aware, no distinctive peculiarities, living in small flocks, and 

 poising itself in the air like its congeners. Its notes are few, though 

 not unmelodious; but its song will bear no comparison either in 

 volume or sweetness with that of the Skylark. It varies considerably 

 in size, but its average length is about six inches and a half." 



Dr. Leith Adams considers this bird as probably identical with M. 

 phoenicuroides, Blythe, "I. A. S. Beng.," xxii, p. 583. It is found 

 in Scinde and Cashmere. Dr. Adams gives the following measure- 

 ments of the Indian species:— " Length about six inches; wing three 

 vol. in. Q 



