CALANDRA LARK. 127 



Length eight inches; carpus to tip five inches and three tenths; beak three 

 quarters of an inch; hind claws three fifths of an inch; hind toe two fifths 

 of an inch. 



The Calandra Lark, one of the most conspicuous species of the 

 genus, is also perhaps the best known of this section, being very 

 common in many parts of the south of Europe. It is found in Italy, 

 Portugal, and Spain, Roman States and Sicily, Sardinia, south of 

 France, Greece, the Crimea, and the Steppes generally of the south 

 of Russia. It is observed rarely in Germany, and, according to 

 Temminck, never in Holland, but it is included, figured, and des- 

 cribed by Dubois among the birds of Belgium. It is very abundant, 

 Colonel Irby writes, at Gibraltar. 



Salvadori, "Fauna d'ltalia," says that in Italy it "is stationary 

 principally in the south. It first appears plentifully in Tuscany by 

 the sea-shore. (In the Pisa plains it is accidental.) It becomes 

 still more abundant in the Roman and Neapolitan sea-borcls. It is 

 very common in many places in Sicily and Sardinia. It is rare and 

 accidental in Piedmont, Lombardy, and Venice. In Malta some are 

 found in March and October. I have noticed that the bird is not 

 so shy in Sardinia as in Rome and other places." 



Savi says, "This bird is one of the best songsters, imitating with 

 its soft and flexible notes to perfection all the birds it hears singing. 

 One may say that it has not a note proper to itself, its song being 

 no other than an agreeable and masterly re-union of the notes of 

 other birds. While free upon its wings, ascending or descending in 

 circles in the air, its song is now the gurgle of the Skylark, now 

 the love-song of the Linnet, and now that of the Bunting. In a 

 minute it passes on to imitate the winter whistling of the Meadow 

 Pipit, the Wagtail, and the Greenfinch. Again it adroitly returns to 

 an imitation of the song of the Skylark, and counterfeits all these voices 

 so perfectly that the most expert naturalist might be deceived. It 

 nests in meadows and cultivated fields. The eggs are four or five, 

 having a rosy ground with ash-coloured spots and obscure points." 



In the north of Africa it is mentioned by Mr. Tristram as swarming 

 on the coasts, but scarcer in the interior, so as hardly to lay claim 

 to the Sahara as a locality. It is also included by that gentleman among 

 the birds of Palestine, (Ibis, vol. i.) It is plentiful in Turkey, and 

 in the Steppes of Southern Asia. 



Like most of its tribe, except our Skylark, the Calandra seems to 

 prefer wild and desolate plains to cultivated ground for its residence. 

 In other respects, however, its habits are very similar. Dubois 



