In Shakespeare's play, "As You Like It," scene V.. Amiens, a close student 

 of nature, is made to sing this song. 



It probably caused his companion, Jaques, to remember the skylark of his 

 own boyhood, for he besought Amiens to "sing it again." But Amiens argued 

 with his friend that it would make him "melancholy." However, he sang again,- 

 and it is supposed that the two lived over the days of their boyhood, when they 

 lay on the grass under the greenwood-tree, just on the edge of a corn-field, and 

 listened to the skylark tuning his merry note in his own sweet throat. 



Dear to the heart of English boys and other people is the skylark, on account 

 of which, and for the reason that Britishers of any age may like to meet an old 

 friend should they chance to take up this book in their travels, we are giving a 

 chapter to this bird. In the play, Jaques and Amiens sing later together all 

 about their favorite lark (it is presumed) : 



"Who loves to live i' the sun, .i, 



Seeking the food he eats 

 And pleased with what he gets." 



Surely the skylark loves to live i' the sun, for he is always in the open, sum- 

 mer and winter, as if he would be sure to not miss a single sunbeam. As is the 

 case with most of our birds who dwell or nest near our homes, the skylark does 

 not seek man for his own sweet sake, but for the sake of what the farm holds; 

 though no marauder is this lark, for it eats ground insects nearly the whole year — 

 crickets, and beetles, and grubs, and worms, and little folk who see no further 

 than their noses. To be sure, in late fall, after the farmer's buckwheat and other 

 grains are ripened and mostly harvested, the larks visit the fields in flocks to 

 gather up the crumbs and grow fat on the change from a meat to a vegetable diet. 



This growing fat, by reason of his generous diet in late fall, just before the 

 snows come, serves the same purpose as does the fattening of bear just before 

 winter. The snow covers lark's "meat victuals" all up, and the birds must fall 

 back at times on their stores laid by under their skin for this very season. Though 

 they do not hibernate, they still have use for their fat. So has the gunner, and 

 the people with snares ready to set for the unwary and hungry birds. 



A recent writer, commenting on this autumn sport of the Englishman, excuses 

 their seemingly wanton destruction by observing that "were they not thus taken, 

 large numbers would doubtless meet natural death in their autumn flights." To 

 quote Shakespeare again, "Oftentimes, excusing of a fault doth make the fault 

 the worse." 



There seems to be a sort of inconsistency in the fact that, from earliest times, 

 the human family have been guilty of eating what most they love — or what most 

 they do declare to love. The flavor of the flesh of a bobolink or skylark is hardly 

 out of the mouth before the tongue takes to praising the favorite bird with a 



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