Pallas 1811 refers to Latham 1783 General Synopsis who calls Alauda Calandra? of Pallas's travels p. 708 variety A. White-winged Lark and differentiates Alauda mongolica as a separate species.
Yes, he cites his own "
Calandra ?", but paraphrasing it as
Alauda Calandrae affinis = lark related to the calandra, and then indeed
Latham who called it "White-winged Lark". The default explanation for
leucoptera, thus, would seem to be that Pallas latinised the English name coined by Latham (and simply overlooked Hablizl's name).
I went through the bird list in the
French translation of Hablizl's book (published in 1788). The list covers 13 pages, includes 78 species, and is followed by a note saying:
"Besides the bird species that we just described and that stay almost year-round in Tauride, other migrants are also encountered, that show up in spring, during their journey from the southern to the northern countries, and vice versa in fall. But as they don't make it their permanent stay, these are not part of the indigenous species of Tauride."
However:
- although the list includes a few species (
eg., the common swift) that are nevertheless said to be present in summer only, many other included species are certainly completely absent from Crimea in winter, without this being noted at all;
- some species that should be winter visitors (
eg., the whooper swan) are noted as being present in spring and autumn only;
- not a single species is explicitly said to be present in winter.
Overall, I'd say that this list looks very much like the list of someone who never studied birds in Crimea in winter.
Despite this, Hablizl's
Alauda leucoptera (which, if it is the white-winged lark, should only be a winter visitor to Crimea) is said to be abundant in every plain and valley, together with crested larks.
I can't refrain noting that Hablizl's list apparently lacks calandra lark... which also has white in the wings, even if admittedly much less than a white-winged lark, and "swarms" of which are promised by
WINGS to the clients who will visit this region with them.
