240 LAXD-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



"The pale purple even 



'"Melts around tliy flight; 

 " Like a star of heaven 



"lu the broad daylight 

 "Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight." 



" Teach me half the gladness 



'■ Tliat thy brain must know, 

 " Such harmonious madness 



" From my lips would flow 

 " The world should listen then, as I am listening now I " 



The last stanza of "Wordsworth's ode to the Sky Lark is also 

 very fine : — 



"Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; 



" A privacy of gloi-ious lip;ht is thine, 



" Whence thou dost pour upon tlie world a flood 



"Of harmony, with iu^;tin(•t move divine; 



"Type of the wise, who soar, Init never roam — 



"True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home." 



Note.— "The famed Skylark of the Old World" (Alaucla 

 arvensis), says Dr. Brewer, "can rest on a twofold claim to be 

 included in a complete list of North American birds. One of 

 these is their occasional occurrence in the Bermudas, and in 

 Greenland. The other is their probably successful introduc- 

 tion near New York." 



(a). Nearly eight inches long. Above, grayish-brown ; be- 

 neath, white, or buff-tinged ; above and below, much streaked 

 with dusk}'. Outer tail-feathers, white. (Details omitted.) 

 Young much more yellowish, and less streaked. 



(&). Of two eggs in my collection, one measures "Oo X '65 

 of an inch, and is grayish- white, thickly and minutely marked 

 with ashy brown, forming a dark ring about the crown. The 

 other is tinged with green, is more evenl}- marked, and meas- 

 ures "90 X '70 of an inch. The nest is built upon the ground. 



§ 17. The IcteridSD (or starlings) include the blackbirds, 

 orioles, etc. As Dr. Cones says ; " the relationships are very 

 close with the Fringillidce on the one hand ; on the other, they, 

 grade toward the crows {Corvicke). The}^ share with the frin- 

 gilline birds the characters of angulated commissure and nine 



