288 RIVERBY 



in full song above the hills in Delaware County, af- 

 ter the manner of the English skylark, but its song 

 was a crude, feeble, broken affair compared with that 

 of the skylark. These birds thrive well in confine- 

 ment. I had one seven months in a cage while liv- 

 ing in Washington. It was disabled in the wing by 

 a gunner, who brought it to me. Its wound soon 

 healed; it took food readily; it soon became tame, 

 and was an object of much interest and amusement. 

 The cage in which I had hastily put it was formerly 

 a case filled with stuffed birds. Its front was glass. 

 As it was left out upon the porch over night, a 

 strange cat discovered the bird through this glass, 

 and through the glass she plunged and captured the 

 bird. In the morning there was the large hole in 

 this glass, and the pretty lark was gone. I have 

 always indulged a faint hope that the glass was such 

 a surprise to the cat, and made such a racket about 

 her eyes and ears as she sprang against it, that she 

 beat a hasty retreat, and that the bird escaped 

 through the break. 



ii 



In May two boys in town wrote to me to explain 

 to them the meaning of the egg-shells, mostly those 

 of robins, that were to be seen lying about on the 

 ground here and there. I supposed every boy knew 

 where most of these egg-shells came from. As soon 

 as the young birds are out, the mother bird removes 

 the fragments of shells from the nest, carrying them 

 in her beak some distance, and dropping them here 



