THE SKYLARK. 



(5 HE English Skylark has been 



. more celebrated in poetry than 



oj any other song-bird. Shel- 



-^ ley's famous poem is too lon^ 

 to quote and too symmetrical to present 

 in fragmentary form. It is almost as 

 musical as the sweet singer itself. 



' By the first streak of dawn," says 

 one familiar with the Skylark, "he 

 bounds from the dripping herbage, 

 and on fluttering wings mounts the 

 air for a few feet ere giving forth his 

 cheery notes. Then upward, appar- 

 ently without effort he sails, sometimes 

 drifting far away as he ascends, borne 

 as it were by the ascending vapors, so 

 easily he mounts the air. His notes 

 are so pure and sweet, and yet so loud 

 and varied withal, that when they first 

 disturb the air of early morning all the 

 other little feathered tenants of the 

 fields and hedgerows seem irresistibly 

 compelled to join him in filling the 

 air with melody. Upwards, ever up- 

 wards, he mounts, until like a speck 

 in the highest ether he appears motion- 

 less ; yet still his notes are heard, 

 lovely in their faintness, now gradually 

 growing louder and louder as he 

 descends, until within a few yards of 

 the earth they cease, and he drops like 

 a fraement hurled from above into the 

 herbage, or flits about it for a short 

 distance ere alighting." The Lark 

 sings just as richly on the ground as 

 when on quivering wing. When in 

 song he is said to be a good guide to 

 the weather, for whenever we see him 

 rise into the air, despite the gloomy 

 looks of an overcast sky, fine weather 

 is invariably at hand. 



The nest is most frequently in the 

 grass fields, sometimes amongst the 

 young corn, or in places little fre- 

 quented. It is made of dry grass and 

 moss, and lined with fibrous roots and 

 a little horse hair. The eggs, usually 

 four or five in number, are dull white, 

 spotted, clouded, and blotched over the 

 entire surface with brownish green. 

 The female Lark, says Dixon, like all 

 ground birds, is a very close sitter. 



64 



remaining faithful to her charge. She 

 regains her nest by dropping to the 

 ground a hundred yards or more from 

 its concealment. 



The food of the Lark is varied, — in 

 spring and summer, insects and their 

 larvae, and worms and slugs, in autumn 

 and winter, seeds. 



Olive Thorne Miller tells this pretty 

 anecdote of a Skylark which she 

 emancipated from a bird store: " I 

 bought the skylark, though I did not 

 want him. I spared no pains to make 

 the stranger happy. I procured a 

 beautiful sod of uncut fresh grass, of 

 which he at once took possession, 

 crouching or sitting low among the 

 stems, and looking most bewitching. 

 He seemed contented, and uttered no 

 more that appealing cry, but he did 

 not show much intelligence. His cage 

 had a broad base behind which he 

 delighted to hide, and for hours as I 

 sat in the room I could see nothing of 

 him, although I would hear him stir- 

 ring about. If I rose from my seat he 

 was instantly on the alert, and stretched 

 his head up to look over at me. I 

 tried to get a better view of him by 

 •hanging a small mirror at an angle 

 over his cage, but he was so much 

 frightened by it that I removed it," 

 "This bird," Mrs. Miller says "never 

 seemed to know enough to go home. 

 Even when very hungry he would 

 stand before his wide open door, where 

 one step would take him into his 

 beloved grass thicket, and yet that one 

 step he would not take. When his 

 hunger became intolerable he ran 

 around the room, circled about his 

 cage, looking in, recognizing his food 

 dishes, and trying eagerly to get 

 between the wires to reach them ; and 

 yet when he came before the open door 

 he would stand and gaze, but never 

 go in. After five months' trial, during 

 which he displayed no particular 

 intelligence, and never learned to enter 

 his cage, he passed out of the bird 

 room, but not into a store." 



