240 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
“The pale purple even 
“Melts around thy flight; 
** Like a star of heaven 
“Tn the broad daylight 
“Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.” 
* * * * * * * 
“Teach me half the gladness 
“That thy brain must know, 
** Such harmonious madness 
“From my lips would flow 
‘¢The world should listen then, as I am listening now!” 
The last stanza of Wordsworth’s ode to the Sky Lark is also 
very fine: — 
“Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; 
‘A privacy of glorious light is thine, 
“ Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 
“Of harmony, with instinct more divine; 
“Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam — 
“True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.” 
Norr.—‘‘ The famed Skylark of the Old World” (Alauda 
arvensis), says Dr. Brewer, ‘‘ can rest on a twofold claim to be 
included in a complete list of North American birds. One of 
these is their occasional occurrence in the Bermudas, and in 
Greenland. The other is their probably successful introduc- 
tion near New York.” 
(a). Nearly eight inches long. Above, grayish-brown ; be- 
neath, white, or buff-tinged; above and below, much streaked 
with dusky. Outer tail-feathers, white. (Details omitted.) 
Young much more yellowish, and less streaked. 
(b). Of two eggs in my collection, one measures ‘95 X *65 
of an inch, and is grayish-white, thickly and minutely marked 
with ashy brown, forming a dark ring about the crown. The 
other is tinged with green, is more evenly marked, and meas- 
ures ‘90 X °70 of aninch. The nest is built upon the ground. 
§17. The Icterids (or starlings) include the blackbirds, 
orioles, etc. As Dr. Coues says; ‘‘ the relationships are very 
close with the Fringiilide on the one hand; on the other, they 
grade toward the crows (Corvide). They share with the frin- 
gilline birds the characters of angulated commissure and nine 
