THE CRESTED LARK. 
235 
all exhibited fragments of stone. The occasional flying of this 
species to man, for protection from birds of prey, is noticed under 
sparrow-hawk. The skylark is most eloquently descanted on in 
the “Recreations of Christopher North,” vol. iii. p. 21. 
Over the greater portion of Europe the Alauda arvensis is 
common. The localities most distant from the British islands in 
which this bird has come under my own observation, were the 
Morea, and about Smyrna, where it was seen in April and May. 
THE CRESTED LARK. 
Alauda cristata, Linn. 
Is said to have been once obtained in Ireland. 
A description and figure of the bird which appeared in the Dub- 
lin Penny Journal of Eebruary the 27th, 1836 (vol. iv. p. 276.), 
contains all that is known of it. The writer, who signs “ J. W. R.,” 
announces the bird under the name of Alauda cristata, and states 
that he killed one near Taney, a few weeks before. 
Mr. Yarrell informs us, in the second edition of his British 
Birds, (vol. i. p. 456), that since the publication of the pre- 
ceding notice, a crested lark has been killed in Sussex: the only 
one known to have occurred in Great Britain. Major Walker, in 
a letter to me, written in June, 1846, from The Lodge, Kyle, 
co. Wexford, remarked, that he had “met with the crested lark 
in great numbers in Hungary, ahnost always in the villages and 
towns, rooting in the mud. Their German name is koth-lerche or 
mud-lark. YarrelTs figure is unfortunately from a dead bird, 
and so loses its resemblance to the living, in which the crest is 
always borne erect, except when spreading its wings to fly. It is 
so large that the bird attracts attention, and I for a long time 
tried to shoot one, but in vain, as, although familiar as sparrows, 
they were hardly to be met with except in towns, where I would 
not fire.” The same gentleman subsequently remarked, that as 
soon as the first snow fell in the north of Erance, in the winter of 
