426 ORNITHOLOGICAL QUERY. 



a catalogue from any other visitor in tlie room. I have known many of 

 those patrons consider themselves discharged from all further exertion 

 by paying five shillings for a season ticket ; as to their buying a picture, a 

 thought of the kind seems never to have entered their heads. They have 

 supposed that these things passed unnoticed. But nothing can be more true, 

 that an exhibition cannot have a negative issue — it cannot leave those whose 

 education and rank in society render it their duty to promote every in- 

 tellectual improvement of their fellow citizens, on the same ground of 

 public estimation as before. If any such exhibition be well attended by 

 visitors and purchasers, the local character will be raised, and with it 

 the character of the higher orders. The success will be an honour to 

 both. If, on the contrary, an exhibition of British excellence fails to 

 produce a due impression upon the public, the failure will be a discredit 

 to all ; but more conspicuously to those who affect to lead the public 

 on all other occasions. 



Monday, June 22nd, 1835. 



ORNITHOLOGICAL QUERY. 



To the Editor of the Analyst, 



Sir, — I observe with pleasure that you have several Ornithologists 

 among your correspondents, and to whom I would beg leave to ask the 

 names of two small birds which I am perfectly well acquainted with, but 

 entirely ignorant of the names by which they are known in books. 

 They are both summer birds, arriving soon after the swallow, and after 

 breeding depart some time in the autumn. 



The first I have always considered to be a kind of lark; at least it has a 

 very striking resemblance to the tit-lark in general colour and markings, 

 but diflfering much in ^ize and manners. In size and shape it is more 

 like the wood-lark ; the tail being as short, and rather more bulky about 

 the breast. It is a mute bird ; having no kind of song, and its call, very 

 seldom uttered, cannot be distinguished from the weak chirp of a young 

 hedge-sparrow. 



In the year 1823 I watched the manners of a pair of them which 

 nestled in a piece of summer tares by the side of a foot-path along which 

 I had occasion to pass and repass several times daily. The cock bird 

 usually sat on an elevated tuft of the tares near the nest ; and on my 

 approaching near the place would fly and perch on a low branch of a 

 hedge about twenty yards off, but very seldom on the topmost sprays. 



My regard for the strange birds, and wishing to see as much of them 

 as possible, prevented me examining the nest, nor from the same feeling 

 did I see the eggs : but they brought out their brood before the tares 

 were cut, and were seen for a few days afterwards walking among the 

 stubble as larks usually do, though seldom on the wing. They were 

 scared from the field at last by the plough, and were not seen by me 

 afterwards. 



This bird is certainly scarce in this country; as though I am acquainted 

 with all our summer birds which breed in the southern counties of 

 England, I do not remember to have noticed this above three or four 

 times during a period of forty years. I imagine their usual summer 

 habitat to be on the western shores of the European continent ; but that 

 a few stragglers occasionally cross the English channel. I may ask, 

 however, is this the Red Lark said to be common in Yorkshire ? 



