OUR BRITISH SONG BIRDS. 75 
whilst others are rather harsh; but when taken young and 
trained to pipe, there is no bird whose voice repays one so 
well for the trouble and care of education. Moreover, the 
tiny pupil becomes so attached to his instructor that he 
welcomes his approach with his sweetest song, puffs out 
his feathers, and bows his coal-black head with as much 
politeness as a courtly knight of the ‘good old days.” The 
affection which in a state of nature he bestowed upon his 
kindred is now lavished, with increased fervour, upon his 
owner, and so jealous is he of that owner’s love, that cold- 
ness or neglect on his part has frequently terminated in the 
death of the poor heart-broken musician. 
“To rise with the lark” is an act ‘‘more honoured in 
the breach than the observance,’ 
at it, for whilst the lark persists in being such an unrea- 
’ 
nor indeed can we wonder 
sonably early riser, few men will be found anxious to 
emulate him. For myself, I can boast of having once or 
twice been out in the fields before the lark was up in the 
heavens, but, in my case, I must admit that there was no 
rising about it, as my couch and I had no acquaintance 
the previous night. On such occasions I have been sur- 
prised to find that the Lark is sometimes beaten in his own 
métier by other birds who are abroad still earlier than he. 
The Rook, for instance, whom nobody seems to consider 
very virtuous except when made up in a pie, I have seen 
and heard a good half-hour, and more, before the Lark put 
in an appearance. 
Although so familiar an object, there are yet points in 
the natural history of the Skylark which have been mis- 
understood by those but imperfectly acquainted with it. 
From its habit of haunting the ground it has been supposed, 
and even asserted, that the Skylark never perches in trees: 
yet this statement is quite untrue. I have often seen 
Skylarks when scared from fields alight on the hedge-top, 
and a friend of mine, long resident in the South of Ireland, 
