266 
ORNITHOLOGY. 
well believe, grand songsters in the nuptial season, but 
they leave us with the first breath of the hot wind, and 
breed, it is believed, in Afghanistan, Bokhara, and Persia. 
It is probably this bird which was found by Canon 
Tristram on Mount Hermon and Lebanon. This species 
much resembles the Calandra Lark [M. calandrd) of Europe, 
but it is somewhat smaller, and has the wing shorter. The 
bill in this species is considerably less, in fact is inter- 
mediate between that of M. calandra and M. tartarica 
The dark collar or gorget is broader, I think, than in 
M. calandra, and is almost always divided in front by a 
broader or narrower line of white, whereas, though other- 
wise figured and described by Bree, all the four specimens 
of M. calandra that I have seen have the gorget virtually 
continuous. I have, however, one specimen of M. torquata, 
an old male, in which the gorget is continuous, one or two 
whitish feathers towards the centre being the only trace 
left of the usual division, so this probably varies in difi'erent 
individuals in both species. In the Calandra Lark the 
outer webs of the three first primaries are conspicuously 
margined in the male, less so in the female, with fulvous 
white. In the Indian M. torquata the edging is duller, less 
in extent, even on the first, and diminished to the merest 
line on the second and third. The external tail feather in 
M. calandra is white, except on the basal half of the inner 
web, which is greyish brown. The next feathers are more 
narrowly tipped and margined white, and the rest (except 
the central ones) are excessively narrowly tipped and 
margined towards the tips. In M. torquata the exterior 
feathers are dark brown, with only a very narrow margin of 
fulvous white on the outer web, and a patch of white at the 
tip, chiefly on the inner web. The next three or four 
feathers were similar, so that while there is four times as 
much white on the exterior feather of M. calandra as on 
that of M. torquata, there is less white on the antepenulti- 
mate of the former than on that of the latter. Then the 
secondaries of the Calandra Lark are pretty broadly tipped 
with white, of which there is no trace in the Bugheira Lark. 
On the other hand, in the latter the lores are whiter, the 
