Stray Feathers/Volume 1/November 1872/The Skylarks of India
The Skylarks of India.
Our Indian Skylarks appear to me to deserve more careful study than has yet been apparently bestowed upon them. Most of all, a really large collection of specimens made in all parts of India, with the sexes and dates on which they were procured duly recorded, is a desideratum ; and I should feel very much obliged to any of my namerous correspondents who would, during the next year, endeavour to procure me good series in their immediate neighbonrhood. Until two or three hundred specimens are brought together in one museum, and carefully collated, I think it will be impossible to come to any certain conclusions in regard to this group. At present, so far as my own limited collection enables me to judge, I am disposed to believe that we have only two good species. These two species I should at present identify as Alauda Arvensis, Linueus, and Alauda Malabarica, Scop.
Our specimens of Alauda Arvensis do not belong precisely to the race to which we Englishmen usually allot the name of Arvensis. On the contrary, the wing is slightly smaller, the hind claw and tarsus as well as the bill slightly shorter, and the lores and the fore-part of the face are a somewhat purer white. At least such is the case with my specimens. This species, so far as my observations go, occurs only in the Himalayas and as a winter visitant to the plains of the North-Western Punjab. It would appear to correspond closely, if not exactly, with that race of the European skylark which Pastor Brehm separated as Alauda Agrestis. This too is the bird which Hodgson designated Dulcivox, and I may note that it is a great mistake to identify his Dulcivox with either Triborhyncha or Orientalis vel Leiopus. Hodgson's original drawings clearly shew that Dulcivox was a larger bird, with a wing of from 4 to 4.5 inches, the Himalayan representative, in fact, of Arvensis; and I have a bird killed at Murdan in December 1870, absolutely identical in every respect with his beautiful figure (now in my custody) of Alauda Dulcivox. On the other hand, his two drawings of Triborhyncha and one of Orientalis vel Leiopus, show that both these species, or races, or perhaps different sexes of the same race belonged to the smaller skylark (all the different races of which I, for the present, include under Malabarica) the wings of which vary from 33 to 3-8 inches.
Of course our larger Himalayan lurk, Arvensis as I should call it, but Agrestis or Dulcivox, if any one considers it deserving of specific, separation, varies somewhat in length of hind claw and bill, a great deal in length of wing according to sex and still more in plumage, according to both sex and season; but in all these matters, exactly parallel variations are to be met with in the series of the true English Arvensis that I possess, and whether we can agree to call our Indian bird Arvensis or Duloivox, there is only, I think, one race of the larger Indian skylark. A larger scries of specimens however of this species is necessary before I could pronounce with any great certainty on this point.
When we come to Malabaricus, however, numerous races appear to exist. There is first the true Gulgula of the plains of the North-Western Provinces, Oudh, Bundelkund, and Rajpootana; second, the darker typical Malabaricus from the Neilgherries and also from Lower and Eastern Bengal; third, a race intermediate between these from the billy, southern, and eastern portions of the Central Provinces; fourth, the true Triborhyncha from the Himalayas, from Murree to Sikhim, ranging up to heights of eight and ten thousand feet, and fifth, what I take to be the Leiopus type from Ladak, Thibet, and the higher Himalayan plateau generally.
Typical specimens of each of these races may be so selected as to make it apparently indisputable, that each represents a distinct species; but even the small series, some five or six of each, that I possess seems to show that no hard and fast line can be drawn between any of them; and it is quite certain that no satisfactory separation can ever be effected, until a really large series of each of these five races and any others that further investigation may bring to light) is brought together in one collection and most carefully collated.
Of these five races the most distinct appears to be the skylark of the high Himalayan plateau (which however in the cold season may, and doubtless does, descend into the lower hills and valleys) which I identify with Hodgson's Orientalis vel Leiopus. This race has the whole lower breast and abdomen perfectly pure snowy white, and this I have observed in none of the other races. The bill is slender like the true Gulgula, but still more sharply pointed; the wings, too, are larger or an average than in any other of the four races, and in the males vary apparently from 3.8 to 4.0 inches. I possess no ascertained female. This race cannot be mistaken (though it approximates to it in length of wing) for Dulcivox, although the lower parts in that species, too, are at times pure white. It is altogether a smaller and less bulky bird, and has a comparatively much longer and markedly more slender bill.
Next to this comes the true Gulgula, which, in the summer at any rate, extends to Cashmere and other comparatively low hill valleys, where, as well as in the plains, it breeds freely. I have specimens of this race from Etawah, Rohtuck, the Sambhur Lake, Bhawulpoor, and Srinnggur, Cashmere. The bill in this race closely resembles that of Leiopus, and is considerably slenderer than those of any of the other three races. The upper surface is much paler than in any of the other four, and the abdomen is pale rufous white. The wings of the male in this race seem to vary from about 37 to 3.8 inches.
The typical Malabaricus has a considerably stouter bill than either of the preceding; the wings are about the same size as those of Gulgula, but the whole upper surface is conspicuously darker, a mixture of deep brown and bright rufous buff, such as is not met with even in freshly moulted specimens of Gulgula, and the lower surface, too, is more markedly tinged with rufous.
The nameless race from Saugor, Raipoor, &c., appears to be intermediate between the two last forms. The bill and general Lone of coloring approaches most closely to Malabaricus, hut in both respects the bird seems intermediate, and the wings of the males appear to vary from 8:4 to 8:6 ivehes.
Lastly, what I take to be the true Triborhynchu has the shortest and stumpiest hill of all, and in summer plumage is darker and inore rufous, and in winter plumage greyer, and duskier than any of the others. I have a single specimen of this bird from the salt range in winter, showing that some specimens, at any rate in the cold season, stragyle outside the Himalayzus ; the wings of the males seem to vary from 3:8 to 4 inches.
I have said nothing about the length of the hind claws, be- cause these appear to vary very mucb according to the individuals and not according to the race. In one individual of Gulgula the hind claw alone measwes just over 0.75 of an inch ; in another, it is sply 0-45 of an iuch ; and similar, though not such striking variations are observable in the lew specimens that I possess of cach of the other races.
Whether any or all of these raees may ultimately prove deserving of specific separation, I cannot pretend to say, but I would earnestly invite the attention of brother ornithologists to this most interesting though troublesome little group, in the hopes that by a combined effort we may in a year or two be in a position to arrive at a more definite conclusion in regard to it.