ALATJDA &ULGULA. 
631 
and Eggs, ii. p. 486 (1874) ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 25, etl875, p. 399 ; Oates, Str. Feath. 
1876, p. 342 ; Hume & Butler, ibid. 1876, p. 2 ; Armstrong, t. c. p. 337; Davison & 
Hume, B. of Tenass., Str. Feath. 1878, p. 409 ; Davidson & Wender, ibid. vii. p. 86 ; 
Ball, t.c, p. 223. 
Alauda leiopus v. orientalis, Hodgs. Gray’s Zool. Miscell. 1844, p. 84. , 
Alauda malaharica (Scop.), Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. 1. Co. ii. p. 467 (1856, in pt.); 
Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 41. 
Alauda australis. Brooks, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 486. 
The Common Indian Lark, Horsf. & Moore. Buruta pitta, Telugu, also Mala pichike, lit. 
“Ground-Sparrow;” Manam hadi, lit. “Sky-bird,” Tamil; Bhurut, Hind. (Jerdon) ; 
Pullu, lit. “ Wormpicker,” Ceylonese Tamils. 
Gomarita, Sinhalese. 
Adult male. Length G-2 to 6-3 inches ; wing 3-35 to 3-7 ; tail 2-0 to 2-15 ; tarsus 0-95 to 1-0 ; middle toe and claw 
0-85 to 0-95 ; hind toe 0-45, claw 0-55 to 0'7 ; bill to gape 0-68 to 0-72. 
Individuals vary much into- se both as to wing and robustness of bill even when shot in the same locality. 
Adult female. Length 6’0 inches ; wing 3-1 to 3*5. 
Iris hazel-brown or chocolate-brown ; bill, upper mandible brown, paling towards the margin, lower mandible fleshy, 
tip dusky ; legs and feet brownish fleshy, togs dusky towards the tip, claws brown. 
Above rich sepiarbrown, the feathers broadly edged on the hmd neck, back, scapulars, and rump with fiilvescent 
yellowish, passing with a rusty hue into the brown next the shaft, and more narrowly margined with the same 
on the head ; the margins of the feathers on the back generally pale to whitish at the tips, and on the hind neck 
they are broader than elsewhere ; wing-coverts broadly edged with rufescent grey, and the secondaries and inner 
primaries deeply with brownish rufous, the margins of the outer primaries being narrower, and the outer web of 
the 1st long quill wholly pale ; tail with the lateral rectrice whitish buS, except at the base of the inner web, and 
the next with the outer web and tip the same ; lores dusky, surmounted by a whitish supercilium ; beneath the 
eye and on the ear-coverts the feathers are edged and tipped with brown, and the lower part of cheeks more or 
less spotted with the same ; chin, throat, and under surface fiilvescent white, the lower part of fore neck and 
chest sepia-brown, centres and the basal portion of the upper breast-feathers rufescent ; lower flanks striated with 
brown. 
Examples vary in the depth of rufous coloration. Jaffna specimens are palest. 
Young. Birds of the year have the feathers of the upper surface rounded at the tips, especially on the head, where 
the tips are whitish ; the back-feathers are likewise tipped with white, and have one web mostly rufous, the other 
being margined with the same ; greater wing-coverts boldly margined with rufous-buff ; tertials tipped and edged 
with fulvescent rufous ; the rufous margins of the quills very bright ; supercilium and under surface more 
rufescent than in the adult. 
Immature birds are at once recognizable by the white-tipped rounded upper-surface feathers, and by their more rufous 
coloration. 
Ohs. The Ceylonese Sky-Lark belongs to the rufous type of Alauda gulgula, the typical form of which was described 
from the North-west Provinces by Franklin. Typical examples of this bird from the northern parts of India are 
much paler than those from the south of the peninsula and from Ceylon ; but the species has been found (by 
accumulating a large series from all parts of India) to divide itself into so many local races, running, as Mr. Hume 
says, into one another in such a manner, that it is not possible to consider them worthy of specific ranli. 
The Nilghiri race (A. australis, Brooks) appears, from this gentleman’s description, to be a larger and more rufous 
bird than ours, lie gives the wing-measurement as 3-84, and the upper surface would appear to correspond in 
tint w’ith that of a yearling A. gulgula from Ceylon. A North-Indian examjfie in the British Museum from Behar 
is quite as rufous as any Ceylon skin in my collection ; it measures — wing 3'6 inches, tarsus 0'8, bill to gape 
0-68. Another from Mogul Serai (wing 3-6) is not very much paler than specimens I have shot at Jaffna, although 
the margins of the back and wing-feathers are not so rufous. One or tw’o Futtehgur specimens collected by 
