THE BIRDS OF MONGOLIA ETC. 317 



Gobi at a frost of 37° Celsius ; and as there is but little snow, they can easily 

 procure food. In the cold season these Larks assemble in large flocks of 

 some hundreds, and even up to a thousand, and keep exclusively to the 

 " dirisun '' thickets. - 



Its flight is wavy, and very fast. When singing, it rises like our Sky- 

 Lark, but not so high up as the latter does, and sings at times also from a 

 stone, or when flying quite close to the ground. Its own song is not at all 

 copious ; but it often mocks the other birds very cleverly indeed, and 

 especially when it is kept in a cage. 



In spring they migrate north of the Baikal ; but some portion of them 

 remain to breed in Mongolia, where there are meadows. They avoid wild 

 deserts. 



We found them very common in summer in S.E. Mongolia ; and as the 

 grass of the steppes there commences to grow only towards the end of the 

 spring, they breed very late, the earliest eggs having been taken by us in the 

 beginning of June. They are much larger (large diameter 0"'9, small diameter 

 0"'7) than the eggs of A. arvensis, and are marked, on a dirty or yellowish- 

 white ground, with grey or pale-brown lines and spots. 



It is very remarkable that the Mongolian Lark perches on trees, as I once 

 noticed. 



Besides Halha and S.E. Mongolia, we fell in with this species also in 

 the Hoang-ho valley, near Lake Tsaidemin-nor ; and then, avoiding Ala-shan 

 and Kan-su, it again appears in the Koko-nor steppes. It does not occur in 

 Tsaidam or Northern Tibet. 



182. Melanocorypha maxima, Gould. Javoronok Velikan. 



Melanocorypha maxima, Gould^ Birds of Asia^ part xix. pi. 



This, the largest species of the Larks, and which originally became 

 known from Afghanistan, has been found by us in Koko-nor and in North 

 Tibet. We met with it for the first time at the sources of the river Tetun^, 



