AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



charming minstrel is as fond of fruit as a blackbird. 

 The song is hardly to be distinguished from the song 

 of the blackcap, that " mock nightingale " ; the garden- 

 warbler is the blackcap's understudy, though he lacks 

 the master singer's rich, flute-like voice. 



LIKE others in love, the male lark assumes a swaggering 

 mien ; putting on an unusually alert air and 

 The gait, with elevated crest he hops in pursuit 



Laverock of his mate, abandoning his usual run ; and 

 now and then he will throw out one wing, 

 and give her a distinct flick. A great lover, he raises two 

 broods, and this perhaps partly accounts for his long 

 song-season, extending over at least ten months. But a 

 month before the skylark, the woodlark, more happily 

 called laverock, already has settled down to nesting 

 duties. From the repeated " lu-lu " of his love-song, 

 he gained the euphonious scientific name, " Ullula," 

 for his dulcet music. 



LARKS sometimes cease singing at the apogee of their 



song-flight, and hurtle silently to earth, 



The Rival and now and then one soars in silence 



Larks this is when in pursuit of a rival making 



music aloft. He mounts in a purposeful 



way, and his silence suggests he knows he needs all his 



breath for the desperate adventure: overhauling the 



singer, he closes in battle. In one such a contest we 



witnessed, the attack failed signally. The pursuit had 



been too hot, perhaps, for a good fight. After a skirmish 



the attacker fell to earth like a plummet, without having 



uttered one note of music, while the victor, soaring 



again, filled earth and sky with his paean. 



62 



