136 PET BIRDS OF BENGAL 



suggestion that these birds are given to 

 regular fights with beak and talons. He 

 says, "Larks have what, at the worst, seem 

 to be delicate little mock -combats in the 

 air, carried on in a way which suggests 

 sport and dalliance between the sexes. 

 Sometimes, rising together they keep 

 approaching and retiring from each other. 

 Then in one Ml they sink to the ground 

 in the grass. Or, they will keep mounting 

 above and above each other to some height 

 and descend in something the same way, 

 bat more sweepingly — ^seeming to make 

 with their bodies the soft links of a feather- 

 ed chain. In each case, they make all the 

 time little kissipecks, rather than ^lecks, 

 at each other." 



Its sono: and vio-our, its dalliance and 

 sportive habits, do not exhaust all the attri- 

 butes of the Lark. It is a bird of immense 

 adaptability. Climatic conditions are a 

 matter of indifference to it. Speaking of 

 the Ganges Sand-Lark, Hume wonders 

 how the bird exists in summer on the bare 



