The Skv-Lark 187 



therein is an advantage ; the young birds at first sleep in the nest, but as they 

 get older the}- crouch down on the turf, and the moist warmth seems to lessen the 

 tendency to cramp ; but I am sure that another and a more important thing is to 

 give them food containing plenty of egg and moistened ants' cocoons. When 

 adult, two or three mealworms a day, a handful of canar}' and millet-seed once a 

 week, and watercress when obtainable, should be given in addition to the usual 

 soft food. 



I think it was in the winter of 1891-2 that my man, having nothing else to 

 do, took my nets out and brought me home thirteen Sky-Larks, in addition to a 

 few other birds ; about eight of these proved to be cock birds, and I selected the 

 three best singers as cage-birds ; one of these I finally retained, parting with the 

 remainder to friends. This bird was always tame and healthy : he lived in a two 

 foot "runner," half turfed and half sanded; he was a grand singer, producing the 

 wild song so perfectly, that if you shut 3'our eyes you could imagine his upward 

 flight, and finally his dropping notes as he i-eturned to earth. Towards the end 

 of 1895 he failed to get well through his moult, and one morning I found him 

 dead with his head under his wing. 



Mr. Seebohm's account of the migration of Sky-Larks as observed by him in 

 Heligoland is exceedingly interesting ; but unfortunately I have not space to quote 

 it here. Speaking of the complaints respecting the diminution of birds, Herr 

 Gatke saj'S : — " To a witness, however, of the enormous passage of migrants, of 

 the myriads of individuals which on autumn nights travel past this island, like 

 the flakes of a snow-storm, not only within the area of the lighthouse, but for 

 miles north and south out to sea, these complaints seem quite incomprehensible. 

 It is surely impossible that the hand of man can exercise any perceptible influence 

 on such enormous migration streams"; and he adds that the number of 15,000 

 Larks caught in one autumn night does not approximately express a proportion 

 of one for each 10,000 individuals of such a migrant stream. 



The figures of eggs 245-8 are from Mr. A. B. Farn's collection ; 249 from 

 Mr. Frohawk's, and 250-4 from the author's series. 



