ALAUDA GULGULA. 
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Its European relative fares worse still, for it is captured, as nearly every one knows, in fabulous numbers 
for the table (we read, in Professor Newton’s edition of Yarrcll, of 1,255,500 having been taken into the 
town of Dieppe during the winter of 1867-8) ; but in addition to this danger it is forced to migrate in vast 
flocks to southern districts when deprived, by a heavy snowstorm, of its sustenance, great numbers never 
again returning j and it is therefore a wonder that this species remains so numerous as it is. 
But to return to the habits of our bird. It sings, I think, quite as sweetly as the European Lark, but 
not so loudly, and its song is not so long sustained, neither does it mount so high in the air. At times this 
Lark maintains its position on the wing by a continued fluttering of its pinions; but it may be more often 
seen making several powerful strokes and then suddenly closing its wings, which movement causes it to dip 
in the air, from which it rises again by the same vigorous strokes, continuing this alternate rising and falling 
until it descends to earth. 
The flesh of the Indian Sky-Lark is excellent eating. It feeds on small insects and various kinds of 
grass-seeds, and during the cool season congregates in flocks, which lie close in the long grass and get up in 
the same manner as the European species, flying off wdth a low straight flight and suddenly dropping again to 
earth. 
Mr. Brooks styles it a most delightful songster and quite equal to the Sky-Lark, with even a sweeter song. 
Jerdon noticed that it frequented, as a favourite resort, the grassy sides of tanks and also the bunds of ri(«- 
flelds, on which, he says, it often breeds. In the islands off the Jaffna peninsula I have observed it in long 
grass among bushes, the usual haunt of the Bush-Lark. 
Nidification . — The breeding-season of this Lark in Ceylon is from May until July or August. The nest 
is placed in a depression in the ground and sheltered generally by a tuft of grass ; sometimes a rut protected 
by a corresponding inequality in the surface is chosen, and at others the liollow would seem to have been 
partly prepared by the bird herself. The nest is rather neatly made of fine grass and roots of the same, lined 
sometimes with a little cattle-hair; the egg-cavity is a broad cup in shape, about 3 inches in diameter and 
2i in depth. The eggs are three or four in number, of a whitish or greyish- white ground-colour, spotted or 
freckled all over with light-brown or greyish-brown ill-defined marking.s. The brown is of various shades, 
and the character of the markings varies somewhat, some eggs being more closely freckled than others. 
Much information concerning its nesting is given in Mr. Hume’s work. Miss Cockburn, as usual, supplying 
many interesting details. She is of opinion that the birds scratch the hole for themselves, and says : — “ I have 
noticed a bare, smooth, round hole from which a pair of Larks had flown away, and some days after as neat 
a Lark’s nest as possible occupied the same spot. The material they use is entirely fine grass twisted round 
and round the hole nearly half an inch thick ; this fine grass is also placed a little over the edge on the side 
at which they enter . . . Sky-Larks never lay twice in the same nest, but always build a new one for every 
brood.” 
As to the eggs of the Indian bird, Mr. Hume says that all the different races lay precisely similar eggs, 
those he has received from the Nilghiris, Central Provinces, Sharunpooi’, Almorah, and Cashmere being 
undistinguishable. They are of two types — the one a cream-coloured ground, freckled /we/y with small spots 
of purplish grey aud brownish yellow ; the other a nearly pure white ground, with larger and less densely 
set markings of the same hue. The average size is 0’8 by 0'61 inch. 
[N.B. — A further species will be treated of in an extra article in the Appendix.] 
