ALAUDA GULGULA. 633 



Its European relative fares worse still, for it is captured, as nearly every one knows, in fabulous numbers 

 for the table (we read, in Professor Newton's edition of Yarrell, of 1,255,500 having been taken into the 

 town of Dieppe during the winter of 1867-8) ; but in addition to this danger it is forced to migrate in vast 

 flocks to southern districts when deprived, by a heavy snowstorm, of its sustenance, great numbers never 

 again returning ■ and it is therefore a wonder that this species remains so numerous as it is. 



But to return to the habits of our bird. It sings, I think, quite as sweetly as the European Lark, but 

 not so loudly, and its song is not so long sustained, neither does it mount so high in the air. At times this 

 Lark maintains its position on the wing by a continued fluttering of its pinions; but it may be more often 

 seen making several powerful strokes and then suddenly closing its wings, which movement causes it to dip 

 in the air, from which it rises again by the same vigorous strokes, continuing this alternate rising and falling 

 until it descends to earth. 



The flesh of the Indian Sky-Lark is excellent eating. It feeds on small insects and various kinds of 

 grass-seeds, and during the cool season congregates in flocks, which lie close in the long grass and get up in 

 the same manner as the European species, flying off with a low straight flight and suddenly dropping a°-ain to 

 earth. 



Mr. Brooks styles it a most delightful songster and quite equal to the Sky-Lark, with even a sweeter son°\ 

 Jerdon noticed that it frequented, as a favourite resort, the grassy sides of tanks and also the bunds of rice- 

 fields, on which, he says, it often breeds. In the islands off the Jaffna peninsula I have observed it in Ion"- 

 grass among bushes, the usual haunt of the Bush-Lark. 



Nidification. — The breeding-season of this Lark in Ceylon is from May until July or August. The nest 

 is placed in a depression in the ground and sheltered generally by a tuft of grass ; sometimes a rut protected 

 by a corresponding inequality in the surface is chosen, aDd at others the hollow would seem to have been 

 partly prepared by the bird herself. The nest is rather neatly made of fine grass and roots of the same, lined 

 sometimes with a little cattle-hair ; the egg-cavity is a broad cup in shape, about 3 inches in diameter and 

 2\ in depth. The eggs are three or four in number, of a whitish or greyish-white ground-colour, spotted or 

 freckled all over with light-brown or greyish-brown ill-defined markings. The brown is of various shades, 

 and the character of the markings varies somewhat, some eggs being more closely freckled than others. 



Much information concerning its nesting is given in Mr. Hume's work, Miss Cockburn, as usual, supplying 

 many interesting details. She is of opinion that the birds scratch the hole for themselves, and says : — "I have 

 noticed a bare, smooth, round hole from which a pair of Larks had flown away, and some days after as neat 

 a Lark's nest as possible occupied the same spot. The material they use is entirely fine grass twisted round 

 and round the hole nearly half an inch thick ; this fine grass is also placed a little over the edge on the side 

 at which they enter . . . Sky-Larks never lay twice iu the same nest, but always build a new one for every 

 brood." 



As to the eggs of the Indian bird, Mr. Hume says that all the different races lay precisely similar eggs, 

 those he has received from the Nilghiris, Central Provinces, Sharunpoor, Almorah, and Cashmere being 

 undistinguishable. They are of two types — the one a cream-coloured ground, freckled finely with small spots 

 of purplish grey and brownish yellow; the other a nearly pure white ground, with larger and less densely 

 set markings of the same hue. The average size is - 8 by 0"61 inch. 



[N.B. — A further species will be treated of in an extra article in the Appendix.] 



4 m 



