ALAUDA G-ULGULA. 631 



and Eggs, ii. p. 486 (1874) ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 25, et 1875, p. 399 ; Oates, Str. Feath. 



1875, p. 342 ; Hume & Butler, ibid. 1876, p. 2 ; Armstrong, t. c. p. 337; Davison & 



Hume, B. of Tenass., Str. Feath. 1878, p. 409 ; Davidson & Wender, ibid. vii. p. 86 ; 



Ball, t. c. p. 223. 

 Alauda leiopus v. orientalis, Hodgs. Gray's Zool. Miscell. 1844, p. 84. 

 Alauda malabarica (Scop.), Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. 1. Co. ii. p. 467 (1856, in pt.) ; 



Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 41. 

 Alauda australis, Brooks, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 486. 

 The Common Indian Lark, Horsf. & Moore. Buruta pitta, Telugu, also Mala picMJce, lit. 



" Ground-Sparrow ; " Manam badi, lit. " Sky-bird," Tamil ; Bhurut, Hind. (Jerdon) ; 



Pullu, lit. " Wormpicker," Ceylonese Tamils. 

 Gomarita, Sinhalese. 



Adult male. Length 6-2 to 6-3 inches ; wing 3-35 to 3-7 ; tail 2-0 to 2-15 ; tarsus 0-95 to 1-0 ; middle toe and claw 



0-85 to 0-95 ; hind toe 0-45, claw 0-55 to 07 ; bill to gape 0-68 to 072. 

 Individuals vary much inter se both as to wing and robustness of bill even when shot in the same locality. 



Adult female. Length 6-0 inches ; wing 3-1 to 3 - 5. 



Iris hazel-brown or chocolate-brown ; bill, upper mandible brown, paling towards the margin, lower mandible fleshy, 

 tip dusky ; legs and feet brownish fleshy, toes dusky towards the tip, claws brown. 



Above rich sepia-brown, the feathers broadly edged on the hind neck, back, scapulars, and rump with fulvescent 

 yellowish, passing with a rusty hue into the brown next the shaft, and more narrowly margined with the same 

 on the head ; the margins of the feathers on the back generally pale to whitish at the tips, and on the hind neck 

 they are broader than elsewhere ; wing-coverts broadly edged with rufescent grey, and the secondaries and inner 

 primaries deeply with brownish rufous, the margins of the outer primaries being narrower, and the outer web of 

 the 1st long quill wholly pale ; tail with the lateral rectrice whitish buff, except at the base of the inner web, and 

 the next with the outer web and tip the same ; lores dusky, surmounted by a whitish supercilium ; beneath the 

 eye and on the ear-coverts the feathers are edged and tipped with brown, and the lower part of cheeks more or 

 less spotted with the same ; chin, throat, and under surface fulvescent white, the lower part of fore neck and 

 chest sepia-brown, centres and the basal portion of the upper breast-feathers rufescent ; lower flanks striated with 

 brown. 



Examples vary in the depth of rufous coloration. Jaffna specimens are palest. 



Young. Birds of the year have the feathers of the upper surface rounded at the tips, especially on the head, where 

 the tips are whitish ; the back-feathers are likewise tipped with white, and have one web mostly rufous, the other 

 being margined with the same ; greater wong-coverts boldly margined with rufous-buff ; tertials tipped and edged 

 with fulvescent rufous; the rufous margins of the quills very bright; supercilium and under surface more 

 rufescent than in the adult. 



Immature birds are at once recognizable by the white-tipped rounded upper-surface feathers, and by their more rufous 

 coloration. 



Obs. The Ceylonese Sky-Lark belongs to the rufous type of Alauda gulgula, the typical form of which was described 

 from the" North-west Provinces by Franklin. Typical examples of this bird from the northern parts of India are 

 much paler than those from the south of the peninsula and from Ceylon ; but the species has been found (by 

 accumulating a large series from all parts of India) to divide itself into so many local races, running, as Mr. Hume 

 says, into one another in such a manner, that it is not possible to consider them worthy of specific rank. 



The Nilghiri race (A. australis, Brooks) appears, from this gentleman's description, to be a larger and more rufous 

 bird than ours. He gives the wing-measurement as 3-84, and the upper surface would appear to correspond in 

 tint with that of a yearling A. gulgula from Ceylon. A North-Indian example in the British Museum from Behar 

 is quite as rufous'as any Ceylon skin in my collection ; it measures— wing 3-6 inches, tarsus 0-8, bill to gape 

 0-68. Another from Mogul Serai (wing 3-6) is not very much paler than specimens I have shot at Jaffna, although 

 the margins of the back and wing-feathers are not so rufous. One or two Puttehgur specimens collected by 



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