A. arenaria, Vieill. A. calandrilla, Bonelli A. bra chydactyla, Tern. Sand Lark, or Lesser Calandre Lark. Above, reddish ash-coloured, spotted with black ; beneath, white, with a black band of spots on the breast, interrupt ed in the middle; tail black, but the outer feathers white towards their tips. Length nearly five inches and a half. The young have a mottled livery, like that of the sky-lark. Native of Italy, Spain, and the countries that confine on the Mediterranean, as also of the Canary Islands, and not advancing farther north than Champagne. In the latter province, it arrives in great numbers about the end of April, frequenting arid and sandy districts. As Bonelli first described it in the Memoirs of the Academy of Turin, and it has been only recently recognised as a distinct species, it was probably long confounded with the sky lark, although its characters and habits proclaim a differ ence. It has two, and sometimes three broods in the year. The nest is placed on the ground, in the print of a horse's hoof, in a small rut, or other depression of the surface, and composed chiefly of hits of grass, being arranged with great simplicity. The female lays three or four grey eggs, covered with brown-grey spots, which are confluent at the large end. When the young of all the-broods are
able to fly, the assembled families forsake the sandy moors, associate in very considerable flocks, and resort to the shady and arable districts. They quit Champagne about the end of August. and do not return till spring. In the morning and evening, all the males of the plain assemble aloft in the air, and give a concert, which is dis tinctly heard, though they themselves are beyond reach of the naked eye. Their warble is more agreeable and melodious than that of the skylark; but it is seldom heard in the middle of the day, and never when the bird is on the ground. So fond are they of rolling in sand, that when it is presented to one of them in -a cage, the little creature manifests its joy and gratitude by a sweet, and often repeated note, by the precipitate agitation of its wings, and by the bristling of all its feathers. It then plunges into the sand, as another bird would do into a bathing vessel—remains in it for a long time, rolls about in every direction, and never desists till it is so completely besanded, that its plumage is scarcely discernible.