CRESTED LARK. 457 
Our personal observation of this bird while on the Conti- 
nent, leads us to regard it as a much more solitary bird 
than the Sky Lark, to which in its general aspect it bears 
a close resemblance. The Crested Lark is said to con- 
gregate in flocks occasionally ; but when we observed 
them they were scattered over the country in pairs, very 
frequently in the vicinity of the main roads.” 
Pallas describes this species as visiting Siberia and Rus- 
sia in summer, and M. Nilsson includes it with a good 
coloured figure in his Fauna of Scandinavia. Buffon 
speaks of it, as before mentioned, as inhabiting Poland ; 
and it is included by various authors among the birds of 
Germany. It is rare in Holland and Belgium, seen in the 
latter named country about October on its passage south. 
M. Vieillot says “it is resident all the year in France, 
and frequently shows itself about the entrance of villages, 
or on low walls or coverings of low houses. Its song is 
sweet and agreeable, and is continued till the month of 
September. The female makes her nest on the ground in 
cultivated fields, it is constructed very like that of the 
Sky Lark, and she deposits four or five eggs of a light 
ash colour, spotted with light and dark brown.” They 
feed on insects of various sorts, worms, and grain, and 
the writer remembers when travelling some years since 
frem Calais to Paris, seeing one or two of these birds 
occasionally picking, like our sparrows, at the horse-dung 
dropped in the road, flying off, on the approach of a car- 
riage, to the road-side, settling on the foot-path or perch- 
ing on any low rail till the vehicle had passed, and then 
returning to renew their search. 
The Crested Lark is found in Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, 
Greece, and Asia Minor; it is found also in Spain, North 
Africa, Sicily, Crete, and in Egypt. 
