SKY-LARK. ^WOOD-LARK. 179 



yellow, was killed in 1862, near North Walsham, and 

 another example in the museum collection (No. lOO.bj 

 has only a few brown streaks on a white ground. 

 No. (100. c) also exhibits the singular effects of extreme 

 age and confinement on the feathered tribe. This bird 

 is stated to have lived twenty-one years, and probably 

 from its artificial food, as is sometimes the case with 

 cage birds, its plumage became black, as it now appears ; 

 whilst the beak and claws denote a very advanced stage 

 of life. The hind-claws in this species occasionally assume 

 a length amounting almost to a deformity ; in one or two 

 instances I have known them to measure, in birds killed 

 in a wild state, considerably over an inch. 



ALAUDA ARBOREA, Linnseus. 



WOOD-LARK. 



This species, by no means numerous in Norfolk, is 

 now confined almost entirely to the western parts of 

 the county, and is there found only in certam localities 

 best adapted to its nesting habits. Mr. Newton, in 

 a communication to Mr. Hewitson (Eggs Brit. Birds, 

 3rd ed.), states, that in the neighbourhood of Thetford 

 these birds '' are most partial to old sheep-walks in the 

 vicinity of Scotch fir-trees. On places such as thesfe the 

 herbage is so scanty that they can hardly be said to 

 choose a tuft of grass as the situation of their nests, 

 though they generally select a spot where the bents are 

 the thickest. I have, however, found a nest where the 

 turf was as short as a well kept lawn, and I have seen 

 one secluded in a clump of heather. Their nests are 

 usually more compact than those of the sky-lark, and 

 will bear being taken up from the hole in which they 

 are built." In the spring of 1864, at West Harhng, I 

 2 A 2 



