356 THE PENCILLED LARK. 



nest so uniform in tint with the surrounding soil, that to discover it is no easy matter. The 

 eggs are four or five in number, and their color is gray-yellow washed with light brown, and 

 speckled with brown of a darker hue. They are laid in May, and are hatched in about a 

 fortnight. 



The young birds are rather precocious, and leave the nest long before they are fully 

 fledged. Even when young, the sexes can be distinguished by the deep yellow of the breast 

 and the more upright carriage. Dealers say that the most certain mode of ascertaining the 

 sex of the Sky -lark is to lay it flat on its back, when, if it be a male, it will spread its tail like 

 a fan. 



The flesh of the Lark is very excellent, and thousands of these birds are annually cap- 

 tured and sent to market. Although it may seem a pity to eat a bird of such musical 

 capacities, the Lark multiplies so rapidly that their numbers seem to suffer no perceptible 

 diminution, and possibly their quick death at the hands of the bird-catcher may be a merciful 

 mode of terminating their existence. The food of the Lark consists of grasshoppers, beetles, 

 and other insects, worms, spiders, and various grubs, all of which it finds upon the ground. 

 In the spring and autumn it varies its diet with vegetable food, eating young grass shoots in 

 the spring, and seeds of the wheat in the summer. 



The upward flight of this bird is rather remarkable, as it does not consist of a diagonal 

 shoot like that of the pigeon, nor a succession of leaps like that of the eagle and hawk, but is 

 a continual fluttering ascent, taking a spiral course, widening as the bird rises into the air. 

 The form of the spiral has been well described by comparing it to a spiral line wound around 

 the exterior of an ascending column of smoke. Mudie suggests that the bird extends the 

 diameter of the spiral in exact proportion to the sustaining power of the atmosphere, and 

 remarks that while descending the Lark follows the same line which it had taken in its ascent. 



During the spring and summer the Sky-lark lives in pairs, and is assiduously employed in 

 attending to the wants of its family, of which it generally produces two broods in each season. 

 Towards the end of autumn and throughout the winter the Larks become very gregarious, 

 "packing" in flocks of thousands in number, and becoming very fat when snow should cover 

 the ground, in which case they speedily lose their condition. These flocks are often aug- 

 mented by the arrival of numerous little flocks from the continent, that come flying over the 

 sea about the end of autumn, so that the bird-catchers generally reap a rich harvest in a 

 sharp winter. 



The color of the Sky-lark is brown of different shades, mingled with a very little white 

 and an occasional tinge of yellow. The feathers on the top of the head form a crest, and are 

 dark brown with paler edges. The whole of the upper parts are brown mottled with a 

 darker hue in the middle of each of them, the throat and upper part of the breast are grayish- 

 brown spotted with dark brown, and the abdomen is yellowish-white deepening into pale 

 brown on the flanks. The greater part of the tail is brown, dark in the centre of the feathers 

 and lighter upon the edges, the two exterior feathers are white streaked with brown on the 

 inner web, and the two next feathers are dark brown streaked with white on the outer web. 

 The total length of this bird is rather more than seven inches. 



ANOTHER species of Lark is often mistaken for the preceding species, from which, how- 

 ever, it may be distinguished by its inferior dimensions, its shorter tail, and the light streak 

 over the eye. This is the WOOD-LARK, so called on account of its arboreal tendencies and its 

 capability to perch upon the branches of trees, a power which seems to be denied to the sky- 

 lark. I have, however, seen one or two letters from persons who assert that they have seen 

 the sky -lark singing in trees, and proved the truth of their assertion by shooting the songster. 



THERE is a curious genus of Larks called by the name of Otocoris, or Eared Larks, on 

 account of the double pencil, or tuft of feathers, which they bear upon their heads, and which 

 project on each side of the face like the pen of a lawyer's clerk from behind his ear. Two 

 species of this genus are now well known to ornithologists, the one being the PENCILLED 

 LARK, and the other the Shore-lark. 



