ALAUDID. 255 
THE SHORT-TOED LARK. 
ALAUDA BRACHYDACTYLA, Leisler. 
The Short-toed Lark is a rare wanderer to England, and the 
authenticated instances of its occurrence appear to be:—one near 
Shrewsbury, two near Brighton, one near Southampton, one on the 
Scilly Islands, one near Cambridge, and one in South Breydon 
Marshes, Norfolk—all in autumn; and one killed near Brighton in 
April 1858 by a person who saw it alight and begin dusting itself 
in the road. On July 27th 1888, Mr. Cooper, the taxidermist, of 
Radnor Street, E.C., showed me a live bird said to have been taken 
at Amberley, Sussex, on the 18th of that month. In Ireland one 
was obtained on the Black-rock light-house, co. Mayo, on October 
11th 1890, and was sent to Mr. R. M. Barrington in the flesh. 
Although this species has been recorded as a visitor to Heligoland, 
it can only be considered a straggler to Northern or even Central 
Germany, Belgium, or France north of Paris; but at Blois the late 
Sir Edward Newton found it breeding, and it is a regular summer- 
visitant to the districts further south, though said to emigrate in 
winter. In the Spanish Peninsula it is abundant and—in the 
southern portions at least—resident ; it is so also in North-western 
Africa, but in the north-east, as far south as Abyssinia, it is only 
found in winter and on passage, when it is very numerous, and 
occurs in large flocks. To Italy it is only a summer-visitor, although 
abundant in the south, but in Malta it is sedentary, and it is found 
