168 
ALAUDINJE. ANTHUS. 
nestles on the ground, laying four or five eggs, which vary 
much in size and colour, but average nine-twelfths in length, 
and seven-twelfths in breadth, and are usually purplish or ' 
greyish-white, with spots, or dots, or blotches of dark red or 
purplish-brown. 
Meadow Lark. Short-heeled Field Lark. 
Alauda trivialis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 288. — Anthus arbo- I 
reus, Temm. Man, d’Ornith. i. 27l. — Anthus arboreus. Tree 
Pipit, MacGillivray, Brit, Birds, ii. 188, 
100, Anthus obscurus. Dusky or Shore Pipit. 
Upper parts olivaceous, obscurely streaked Avith dusky ; 
a short yellowish band behind the eye ; lower parts yellowish- | 
grey ; outer tail-feather pale grey in the terminal half of the 
outer web and the tip of the inner ; the neck, sides, and fore 
part of the breast marked with oblong, undecided dusky, or oli» ' 
vaceous spots ; the first and second quills longest ; the hind claw | 
moderately arched, about the same length as the first joints 
In summer, when the margins of the feathers are abraded, the j 
upper parts are of a nearly uniform greyish-brown tint. The !’ 
young have the feathers of the upper parts dark brown, edged j 
with oil-green, the lower parts more yellow than in the adult, 
and all streaked with olive-brown, except the abdomen. | 
Male, 6 j^, 10 ^, Female, 63 -%^, 10 ^. 
This species, which is considerably larger, and of duller 
tints, than the preceding, is permanently resident, and gene- 
rally distributed, but entirely confined to the sea-shore. It 
resembles the other species in its habits. The nest is placed 
on a grassy bank, or among moss, in some rocky place on the 
coast. The eggs, four or five, are ten-twelfths and a half long, 
eight-twelfths broad, greyish, or greenish-grey, freckled with 
purplish-grey. It was first described by Latham and Lewin 
under the name of Dusky-Lark, Alauda afterv^ards by 
Montagu under that of Alauda petrosa, or Bock-Lark. Being 
the same species as Anthus aquaticus of Temminck, that 
name was usually given to it ; but latterly that ornithologist 
finds that he has confounded two distinct species, and proposes 
adopting for the present that of Anthus obscurus, for the first 
application of which he refers to Gmelin, the bungling com- 
piler,” as some writers on birds, not A^ery politely, but truly 
calls him. Noav, perhaps, Montagu was the first who very 
clearly and intelligibly distinguished and described the bird ; 
and yet I think Latham’s brief description of it is better than 
the specific characters of hundreds of birds, as given by au- 
