THE SHORT-TOED LARK. 187 
nest and has had to build again in a hurry. In colouring, the eggs are 
creamy-whitish freely sprinkled with pale smoky-brown spots and with greyer 
shell-spots; these markings are more or less dense in different specimens, 
sometimes almost concealing the ground-tint and often with a zone of heavier 
marking near the larger end; but these variations are common to all the 
Larks and might almost be taken for granted. 
Jerdon (cf Cat. Birds, E. I. Comp., Vol. II, p. 473) observes :—‘ This bird 
appears on the table-land of Southern India in October. It associates in vast 
flocks, frequenting the bare grass-downs, and is fond of damp spots, as at the 
edge of tanks, etc.; it also frequents grain-fields, and almost always retires to 
them for shelter during the heat of the day; from whence it does not in 
general issue again till next morning.” 
In his ‘Birds of India,” Vol. II, p. 427, he adds the following facts :— 
“Tt feeds almost entirely on seeds; both runs and hops on the ground, and 
has a call-note like that of the real Larks. Towards the end of March in 
the south, April in the north of India, different flocks often unite into vast 
troops, containing many thousand birds, and quite darkening the air, so close 
do they keep together, even when flying. Great numbers are netted in some 
parts of the country, or taken by bird-lime, or shot; for when feeding, they 
keep close to each other. On one occasion, on the cavalry parade ground at 
Kamptee, I bagged twelve dozen birds after discharging both barrels, and many 
wounded birds escaped. They get quite fat about this time, and are really 
very excellent eating, and they are always called Ortolan by Europeans in 
India. They leave the north of India about the end of April, or beginning 
of May, and they breed in the steppes of Central Asia, Eastern Russia, and 
also in Northern Africa, placing their nest on the ground at the edge of a 
scrub or bush, and laying four to six eggs, usually marked with grey and 
rufous spots, but sometimes, it is said, unspotted yellow brown.” 
It is probable that, as with all the Larks, insects form a large proportion 
of this bird’s food in summer and seed in winter. 
Herr Gatke says (The Birds of Heligoland, pp. 359-360) :—‘‘ Formerly, 
hardly a year passed without this pretty little Lark being observed here at 
the end of May or June, even though only in very solitary instances. 
In former years, when more favourable conditions of weather prevailed, the 
bird was seen pretty frequently in autumn, sometimes even as late as November. 
During the time I have been collecting, it has passed through my hands 
about thirty times; and besides that, it has been seen and heard, without 
being killed, on an equal number of occasions. 
