ALAUDA FERRUGINEA. — Smith.* 
Aves. — Plate XXIX. (Male.) 
A. supra ferruginca, infra sordide alba ; gula, gutture pectoreque nigro-brunneo strigatis ; supcrciliis sub- 
ochrois; remigibus brunneis ; rectricibus nigro-brunneis, quatuor extends, cxterne rufo-marginatis, 
duabus mediis ferrugineis ; rostro brunneo, mandibula versus basin sub-flava ; pedibus flavo-brunncis ; 
oculis brunneis. 
Longitudo corporis cum capite 4 unc. 3 lin. ; caudse 3 unc. 2 lin. 
Colour. — The upper and lateral parts of the head, the back and sides of 
neck, the back, rump, shoulders, scapulars, two or three innermost tertiarics, 
and two centre tail-feathers, bright ferrugineous red ; the under parts dull- 
white, the breast and belly faintly tinted with buff-orange, and the throat, 
breast, and flanks, variegated with oblong dark-brown spots— one spot 
towards the point of each feather. The white of the chin is faintly mottled 
with some dusky tints, and the commencement of the throat is margined 
on each side by a blackish line, which commences at the base of the lower 
mandible, and terminates below the points of the ear-coverts. Eye-brows 
dirty ochre-yellow. The lesser wing coverts, the primary and secondary 
quill coverts, the primary and secondary quill feathers, and a stripe along 
the middle of the two or three innermost of the tertiaries, light umber-brown ; 
the lesser coverts are edged and tipt with ferrugineous passing into white, 
and the quill coverts, together with the secondary quills and the primaries 
towards their base, edged externally with rusty white. Tail, with the 
exception of the two feathers already mentioned, dark umber-brown ; the 
outermost feather of each side broadly edged externally with rufous white, and 
the one next in succession narrowly with the same colour. Bill dark yellowish 
* Such naturalists as find characters by which the thick-billed Larks may be separated from those in 
which the bill is less developed, would probably place this species with the former. We confess our 
inability to discover fixed characters by which the limits of the two groupes could be defined, and as we 
have examined many species which we could not with certainty refer to either, provided the division 
was to be adopted, we think it better to include both kinds under Alauda. 
