ALAUDA ARBOREA. 375 



autumn. Owing to its exquisite power of song, like Beauty it 

 is much sought after, and often pays a heavy penalty by the 

 loss of liberty in the dull environs of a cage. It frequents 

 enclosed grounds and heathy districts in the vicinity of sheep 

 walks and old fir trees, and feeds on grain, insects, and worms. 

 Like the sky-lark, it has its nest in a hollow on the ground, 

 under a tuft of grass or low shrub. It is more compact, and 

 can be lifted whole from the hollow. It is composed of dry 

 grass and roots mixed with moss, and lined with fine grass and 

 some hairs. They lay four or five dusky eggs, smaller and 

 lighter in colour than the sky-lark's ; when fresh they are 

 sometimes of a fine rose colour, easily known from the sky- 

 lark's and pipit's. They are f in. by f in. Though less, the 

 wood-lark so closely resembles the sky-lark as hardly to be 

 distinguishable. The bill, however, is more slender; the tail 

 and hind claw shorter. The feathers of the head longer and of 

 a reddish tint. General colour of the upper parts, brownish 

 black, edged with yellowish brown; under parts, yellow, 

 spotted on the neck and breast with black; wing coverts, 

 tipped with white ; iris, hazel ; above the eye a streak of 

 yellowish white, better defined than that of the sky-lark. The 

 sky-lark is 7J inches long by 14}; the wood-lark 6} by 12^, 

 which will be a guide to distinguish them. The females are 

 less, but the same in colour. It is not gregarious, like the sky- 

 lark, in winter, only in families of six or seven, but in severe 

 winters flies along with sparrows, finches, buntings, and sky- 

 larks, about stackyards. Besides the sky and wood-larks, 

 there is another called the shore-lark, or Alpine-lark (Alauda 

 Alpestris); but as it has not been seen to my knowledge about 

 St Andrews — seldom in Britain — I need only say it is like the 

 sky-lark in size and habits, but richer coloured. The upper 

 parts, pale red ; the under parts, white ; the head and breast, 

 black ; throat and band over the eyes, yellow in winter and 

 white in summer, which may help to identify this beautiful 

 bird — even about St Andrews. There is another and still 

 rarer species called the crested-lark (Alauda GristataJ, which 

 in colour, eggs, and habits also resembles the sky-lark. I bid 

 my readers go to the fields with Nature. The birds will 

 amply repay your pleasant study, for, as young Hugh 

 Macdonald, the Glasgow block-printer, rambler, and poet, 

 wrote to Professor Wilson — " You will see the mavis singing 

 in the same bough wi' the wee wren, the blackbird drap doon 

 frae the tap o' the fir tree and jink aboot the hedge-roots wi' 



