OCR Text |
Show 634 MR. R. B. SHARPE ON THE [Nov. 17, legs and toes brownish or reddish brown; iris dark brown" (C. J. Andersson). Total length 6-2 inches, culmen 0*55, wing 3*9, tail 2*7, tarsus 0*85. Adult female. Coloured like the male. Total length 6*2 inches, culmen 0-5, wing 3-65, tail 2'6, tarsus 0*85. The description is taken from a pair of birds collected and sexed by my friend Mr. Ayres. They are both, I take it, in full winter plumage; and I regret that I have the dates of scarcely any of my specimens, which makes it difficult to determine the seasonal changes of the species. Two examples, however, now before me differ sufficiently in their coloration to make me believe that they are in their breeding-dress; and I therefore give the following short notes on this plumage:-General colour more rufous than in winter, especially on the upper tail-coverts and crown, the latter being deep chestnut and the patches on the sides of the breast much larger and extending farther down the sides of the body, the centre of the chest being also washed with rufous. Young. Above blackish, some of the feathers washed with sandy colour, but all of them terminally spotted or edged with creamy white, producing a pretty and variegated appearance ; hind neck greyish mottled with dark brown and spotted with creamy white ; head blackish varied with sandy rufous bases to the feathers and spotted with creamy white ; lores and a broad eyebrow whitish, as also the sides of the face, which have, however, a mark of brown on the cheeks under the eye, while the ear-coverts are dark brown washed with rufous and spotted minutely with creamy white ; under surface whitish, the breast and sides of body mottled, with dark brown bases to the feathers, inclining to rufous on the sides of the breast; under wing-coverts whitish ashy; quills brown broadly margined with rufous, the outer web of external primary fulvous white, the inner secondaries broadly edged with whitish; rump and upper tail-coverts bright fawn-colour spotted with white, before which is a subterminal spot of dark brown; tail blackish brown, the outermost feather white on the outer web, crossing the inner one obliquely near the tip, the two centre feathers rufous near the base and margined with whitish towards the tip. Hab. Cape colony to the Transvaal and thence to Damara Land, where, however, the size is rather smaller (vide infrh). Canon Tristram has very kindly sent me the whole of his collection of Larks for examination ; and among them I find the type of bis Megalophonus anderssoni. I am sorry I cannot iudorse this bird as a good species ; for it is assuredly the Alauda spleniata of Strickland, and I cannot see in it any more than a small subtropical form of Tephrocorys cinerea; and as such it would bear the title of Tephrocorys spleniata. The specimen identified as C. anderssoni by Mr. Blanford, which bears the handwriting of Canon Tristram, seems to me to be merely C. ruficeps in winter plumage (cf. Blanf. Geol. & Zool. Abyss, p. 389). The specimen in Canon Tristram's collection measures as follows- |