Birds. 5509 



includes Alaucla cristata in his ' List of Birds observed in the Crimea' 

 (Zool. 5353). 



I ask any naturalist, Is there any pleasure in for the first time ob- 

 serving a species new to you ? Surely you have a peculiar feeling 

 within you, — you eagerly wish for a specimen, — and I will answer for 

 it that you do not rest until you have obtained such. Suppose that 

 you are a field ornithologist, you take the first opportunity, and 

 although the weather is cold and windy, with snow covering the 

 ground, you trudge off with your fowling-piece to where you observed 

 the birds. I did this on the 2nd of January, and found the bird 

 I was in search of on the Karani Hill, within sight of Sebastopol : I 

 soon procured a couple, and, after waiting in the snow behind an old 

 bit of a wall for some time, knocked over six more at a shot : they 

 were larks, but the largest I had ever seen. I had studied Yarrell well, 

 while making out the shorttoed lark. What could they be ? To make 

 sure, however, I turned over the leaves again that evening in my hut : 

 they were not there. I was at a loss; "however," said I to myself, 

 "they are larks, but somewhat approaching the buntings:" so I 

 marked them in my journal as specimens of " large lark," and noted 

 the measurements and other points. This was the calandra lark 

 (Alauda calandra), as I afterwards learned, from England. 



A few days after this, the 5th of January, I was again on the qui 

 vive, as a friend told me he had seen some buntings, white below and 

 rusty-colour above : with this hint I made for a camp where he said 

 some had been shot, the ground being covered with snow, and sure 

 enough, on looking over a heap of small birds, 1 found the calandra 

 lark, common bunting, and another new to me, which I put down, for 

 distinction, as a " lark bunting, No. 20," the skin as well as the 

 sternum of which I preserved. The same officer, a day or two after, 

 kindly sent me a specimen of the same bird, the whitewinged lark 

 (Alauda leucoptera), a male, from which I penned the following 

 description at the time : — " Length 7 T 5 -g- inches; closed wing 4^- inches. 

 Legs, toes and claws brown ; bill horn-colour, darkest above and at 

 the point ; upper mandible overhanging the lower jfoih of an inch ; top 

 of the head and ear-coverts chestnut-gray ; the feathers on the back dark 

 brown, centres with light edges; lesser wing-coverts, bastard wing 

 and primary coverts chestnut; secondary wing-coverts and tertials 

 reddish brown, edged with light; primaries and secondaries dark 

 brown — the third, fourth and fifth of the primaries tipped with light red- 

 brown, the remainder white inner webs — all the secondaries tipped, for 

 three-fourths of an inch, with white, which is not seen when the wing 



