The Wood Lark. 5 



hair, in dense masses of foliage, as for instance, against the 

 trunk of a pollard oak or ash, or towards the top of a fir 

 tree, preferring, however, the former situation. Its eggs are 

 grey, spotted with brown, and four or five in number; there 

 are usually two broods in the season; and if the young are 

 intended to be brought up by hand, they must be taken from 

 the nest when the tail and wing feathers are about an inch 

 long; they are easily reared on meat, raw or cooked, bread 

 crumbs and yolk of egg, or, preferably, the flesh of small 

 birds and insects, especially caterpillars : when full grown they 

 will eat, and thrive on, anything that comes to table. Hand- 

 reared Jays often become very tame, while those captured when 

 full-grown always retain their wildness. 



As the Jay is a great eater, the utmost care and attention 

 and a large cage are necessary to keep its beautiful plumage 

 in good order; for this is, after all, its chief attraction, for it 

 rarely learns to speak more than a word or two, and cannot 

 be safely trusted at large among other birds. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE WOOD LAEK. 



11^ the early part of the winter following the purchase and 

 premature death of my poor Jay, our gardener, on her way 

 to work one morning, picked up in the snow a little half-dead 

 bird with a broken wing, the still-living proof of some bumpkin's 

 unskilful gunnery, and brought it on to our house as a present 

 for me. 



I was yet in bed when she arrived, but the news that 

 Marie Baudoin was down stairs with a live bird, acted like 

 a charm, so that I was up and dressed in a much shorter 

 space of time than had ever happened to me before. 



*' Poor little thing! How did you catch it?" and a hundred 



