P ASSURES. A LA UDIDaE. Mr. Rowley exhibited this specimen*, stating that it was a
M e la n o c o r y ph a s ib ir ic a (J. E. Gmeiin*).
WHITE-WINGED LARK.
M e l a n o c o r y ph a , F. JBoief.—Bill short, stout, subconic and slightly compressed;
upper mandible arched from the base and without notch. Nostrils
basal, oval, closely covered by bristly feathers directed forwards. Gape straight.
Head without elongated feathers. Wings long: first primary very small and
nearly obsolete; second and third nearly equal and longest; secondaries very
short and emarginate a t the t ip ; tertials moderate, not exceeding the sixth
primary. Tail short and slightly forked. Tarsus blunt and scutellated behind
as well as before, longer than the middle to e ; claws moderate and slightly
curved, except that of the hind toe which is much elongated and straight.
Mr. R o w l e y was the first to recognize in a Lark netted
near Brighton, November 22nd, 1869, and shewn to him
while alive on that day by Mr. Swaysland, an example of this
rare species, which has but seldom visited Western Europe.
At a meeting of the Zoological Society, January 27tli, 1870,
* Alauda sibirica, J. F. Gmeiin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 799 (1788).
f Isis, 1828, p. 322.
hen bird, and when caught was associating with a flock of
about two dozen Snow-Buntings (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870,
pp. 52, 53). The specimen is now in Mr. Monk’s collection
and up to the present time is the only one known to have
occurred in Britain.
This fine Lark was originally described by Pallas in 1773
(Reise u. s. w. ii. p. 708) as a variety of the Alauda
calandra of Linnaeus, which it somewhat resembles, and
fifteen years later first received a specific denomination
from J. F. Gmeiin. Subsequently Pallas, in his great work
on the Zoology of the Russian Empire, renamed it A.
leucoptera and said that it was especially common in the
Desert of Baraba from the river Om to the Altai and was
most abundant along the course of the Irtish where he first
discovered it. In 1773 he found it on the steppes of the
river Jaik or Ural, and it appeared to him to visit the whole
of Great Tartary. Later observers state that it does not
occur to the eastward of the Jenisei and its affluents, and
therefore its range in that direction is not very great. I t is
found throughout the Kirgis Steppes and Mr. Dresser has
a specimen from Kokand, while westward it inhabits the
country between the Jaik and the Volga as high as Orenburg
and Saratov. In South Russia generally, though
occurring in the Government of Ekaterinoslav, it is said by
the elder Nordmann to be very rare, and he never saw it
alive. According to Herr E. J . von Homeyer (Journ. fur
Orn. 1854, p. 364), Herr Radde sent a specimen from Jeni-
Sala. I t was obtained by Capt. Blakiston in the Crimea,
in January 1856, and it appears occasionally in hard winters
on the Bosphorus, whence Mr. Robson has sent many
specimens, but there is no evidence of its occurrence further to
* The Editor had the opportunity of previously seeing this specimen, for on
the morning of New-Year’s day, 1870, just after having read a notice in the
‘ Zoologist’ (s.s. p. 1984) in which it was designated a young Snow-Finch
(Montifringilla nivalis), he accompanied Mr. Iiowley to Mr. Swaysland’s shop,
and had the pleasure of confirming the determination of his friend, who on the
same day sent to the conductor of that journal a correction of the error which
was eventually printed (tom. cit. p. 2066).