SKY LARK. 411 



Scotland, has well contrasted tlie lowly situation of the nest 

 with the lofty flight of the builder : 



" Thou, simple bird, dwellest in a home 



The humblest ; yet thy morning song ascends 

 Nearest to Heaven." 



The materials of which the nest is formed, as well as the 

 locality frequently selected for it, are in the same poem 

 thus truly described : 



" The daisied Lea he loves, where tufts of grass 

 Luxuriant crown the ridge ; there, with his mate. 

 He founds their lowly house, of withered bents, 

 And coarsest spear-grass ; next, the inner work 

 With finer, and still finer fibres lays, 

 Rounding it curious with his speckled breast." 



The eggs are four or five in number, of a greyish white 

 ground tinged with green, and mottled nearly all over with 

 darker grey and ash brown ; the length eleven lines, by eight 

 lines and a half in breadth : the young are hatched in about 

 fifteen days. Mr. Selby says, that the young of the first 

 brood are fledged by the end of June, and the second brood 

 are able to fly in August. The strong attachment of the 

 parent Lark to its eggs and young has long been known, and 

 a remarkable instance is thus described by Mr. Blyth in the 

 second volume of The Naturalist. " The other day some 

 mowers actually shaved oiF the upper part of the nest of a 

 Sky Lark without injuring the female, which was sitting on 

 her young ; still she did not fly away, and the mowers le- 

 velled the grass all round her without her taking further 

 notice of their proceedings. A young friend of mine, son of 

 the owner of the crop, witnessed this ; and about an hour 

 afterwards went to see if she was safe, when, to his great 

 surprise, he found that she had actually constructed a dome 

 of dry grass over the nest during the interval, leaving an 



