THE SKYLARK 119 
some one or other of its companions. In winter, it seems to act 
as a guide to the smaller land birds, who, finding their supply of 
food diminished or altogether cut off by the frost, are attracted 
by its movements, and join it in searching for insects among the 
unfrozen 
‘ridge of all things vile,’ 
left on the shore by the receding tide. Montagu says, that it has 
never been observed to be gregarious ; his editor, however, Rennie, 
states that he has noticed it to be, if not quite gregarious, at least 
very nearly so, on the wild rocky shores of Normandy; and, from 
my own acquaintance with its habits in Devon and Cornwall, I 
am inclined to agree with the latter. If not gregarious, it is at 
least sociable, and that too at seasons when the flocks could hardly 
have been family gatherings only. The same remark holds good 
of the Meadow Pipit. A migration southwards takes place in 
October along our east coast. 
FAMILY ALAUDID 
THE, SKYLARK 
ALAUDA ARVENSIS 
Upper parts reddish brown, the centre of each feather dark brown; a faint 
whitish streak above the eyes; throat white; neck and breast whitish, 
tinged with yellow and red, and streaked with dark brown ; tail moderate. 
Length seven inches and a quarter. Eggs greyish, thickly speckled with 
dark grey and brown. 
Tue Skylark, a bird whose flight and song are better known perhaps 
than those of any other bird, needs but a simple biography. The 
favourite bird of the poets, its story might be told in extracts compiled 
from various authors whose muse has led them to sing of Nature. 
Much, however, that has been written is but an amplification of 
the golden line, ‘Hark, the Lark at Heaven’s gate sings!’ and not 
a little is an exaggerated statement of the height to which it ascends, 
and the time which it remains suspended in mid-air. But the 
Skylark needs no panegyrists, so, with all due deference to those 
who have struck the lyre in its honour, I will endeavour to describe 
its habits and haunts in humble prose. 
The Skylark is a generally-diffused bird, adapted by the con- 
formation of its claws for perching on the ground, and by its length 
and power of wing for soaring high in the air. Accordingly, its 
food consists of small insects and seeds, which it collects among the 
herbage of stubble-fields, meadows and downs, or in newly-ploughed 
