ALAUDA ARBOREA. 373 



them, but, if so, the more need our best songster should 

 be preserved by man, and the less cause for lark pies. Like all 

 good married pairs they keep together while family cares are 

 going on, but in winter they are gregarious, and fly in large 

 flocks. They live about thirty years ; the wood -lark thirteen. 



The Wood-Lark. 



Alauda Arborea. (Linn.) 



" Teach us, sprite or bird, 



What sweet thoughts are thine ; 

 I have never heard 

 Praise of love or wine 

 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine." — Shelley. 



The wood-lark is rare here — rare even in Scotland — being 

 chiefly confined to the south and west of England ; but that is 

 no reason why my young readers should not be on the look-out 

 for it, for many rare birds are found where least expected, and, 

 as it is plentiful in the south of Britain, I don't see why it 

 should not pay us a visit in the north, especially since drainage 

 and other assimilating influences has given Fife as good crops 

 and pastures as Devonshire, where it is most abundant. I saw 

 it at Magus Muir in June 1888 ; also at Clatto and Kincaple, 

 which shows it breeds in Fife. Burns, in his " Address to the 

 Wood-lark"— 



" Oh, stay, sweet warbling wood -lark stay, 

 Nor quit for me the trembling spray ; 

 A hapless lover courts thy lay, 



Thy soothing, fond complaining," 



was just using a poet's license, yet correctly, for the wood-lark's 

 song surpasses even the sky-lark's in sweetness though not in 

 variety ; therefore he was not far wrong when he exclaimed — 



" Again, again that tender part, 

 That I may catch thy melting art ; 

 For surely that would touch her heart, 

 Wha kills me wi' disdaining. 



Say, was thy little mate unkind, 

 And heard thee as the careless wind ? 

 Oh ! nocht but love and sorrow joined 

 Sic notes o' woe could van ken. 



