LARK 507 



outgrowth of a fleshy lobe or lobes. With the exception of North 

 America, they are found in most parts of the world, but perhaps the 

 greater number in Africa. Three species occur in Europe — Hoplo- 

 ptenis spinosus, the Spur- winged Plover, and Chettusia gregaria and 

 C. leucura ; but the first and last are only stragglers from Africa 

 or Asia. 



LARK, Anglo-Saxon Ldwerce, German Lerche, Danish Lserke, 

 Dutch Leeuwerik, a name (perhaps always, but now certainly) used 

 in a rather general sense, any special meaning being signified by a 

 prefix, as Skylark, Titlark, Woodlark, and so forth ; though 

 custom ordains that the first of these, the Alauda arvensis of 

 ornithology, is intended if no qualification be expressed, since it is 

 the best knoAvn and most widely-spread species throughout Europe. 

 It scarcely needs description. Of all birds it holds unquestionably 

 the foremost place in our literature, and there is hardly a poet or 

 poetaster who has not made it his theme, to say nothing of the 

 many writers of prose who have celebrated its qualities in passages 

 that will be remembered so long as our language lasts. It is also 

 one of the most favourite cage-birds, as it will live for many years 

 in captivity, and, except in the season of moult, will pour forth its 

 thrilling song many times in an hour for weeks and months 

 together, while its affection for its owner is generally of the most 

 marked kind. Difficult as it is to estimate the comparative 

 abundance of different species of birds, there would probably be no 

 error in accounting the Skylark the most plentiful of the Class in 

 Western Europe. Not only does it frequent almost all unwooded 

 districts in this quarter of the globe, making known its presence 

 throughout spring and summer, everywhere that it occurs, by its 

 gladsome and heart - lifting notes, but, unlike most birds, its 

 numbers increase with the spread of agricultural improvement, and 

 since the beginning of the century the extended breadth of arable 

 land in Great Britain must have multiplied manifold the Lark- 

 population of the country. Nesting chiefly in the growing corn, 

 its eggs and young are protected in a great measure from all 

 molestation ; and, as each pair of birds will rear several broods in 

 the season, their produce on the average may be set down as at 

 least quadrupling the original stock — the eggs in each nest varying 

 from three to five. The majority of young Larks seem to leave 

 their birthplace as soon as they can shift for themselves, but what 

 immediately becomes of them is one of the many mysteries of 

 bird-life that has not been penetrated. When the stubbles are 

 cleared, old and young congregate in flocks ; but the young then 

 seen appear to be those only of the later broods. In the course of 

 the autumn they give place to others coming from more northerly 

 districts, and then, as winter succeeds, in great part vanish, leaving 



