A Békés Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 2. (Békéscsaba, 1973)

Sterbetz István: A székipacsirta Orosház környékén

The short-toed lark in the district of Orosháza ISTVÁN STERBETZ The subspecies of the short-toed lark nesting exclusively on the Great Hungarian Plain (Calandrella brachydactyla hungarica Horváth 1956) lives in insular-like segregation on the Hortobágy and the Kardoskút reservation. The article gives an account of the population around Orosháza and deals with the problems of the evolution of the hungarica-race. According to the author, the Calandrella genus became acclimatized in the Carpathian basin either in a postglacial xerothermal steppe-period 7—5000 years ago, or during recent centuries. In the former case the hungarica-race may have developed alike by slow acclimatization or by mutation. According to the second hypothesis, however, it can have evolved only via mutation. 16* 243