152 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



follow it about and hover above it, and by manj 

 gentle indirections seek to approach it. But the 

 sparrow was shy, and evidently did not know what tc 

 make of her distinguished foreign lover. It would 

 sometimes take refuge in a bush, when the lark, not 

 being a percher, would alight upon the ground be- 

 neath it. This sparrow looks enough like the lark to 

 be a near relation. Its color is precisely the same, 

 and it has the distinguishing mark of the two lateral 

 white quills in its tail. It has the same habit of 

 skulking in the stubble or the grass as you approach ; 

 it is exclusively a field-bird, and certain of its notes 

 might have been copied from the lark's song. In size 

 it is about a third smaller, and this is the most marked 

 difference between them. With the nobler bipeds, 

 this would not have been any obstacle to the union, 

 and in this case the lark was evidently quite ready to 

 ignore the difference, but the sparrow persisted in 

 saving him nay. It was doubtless this obstinacy on 

 her part that drove the lark away, for, on the fifth 

 day, I could not find him and have never seen nor 

 heard him since. I hope he found a mate some- 

 where, but it is quite improbable. The bird had, 

 most likely, escaped from a cage, or, may be, it was 

 a survivor of a number liberated some years ago on 

 Long Island. There is no reason why the lark should 

 not thrive in th s country as well as in Europe, and, 

 if a few hundred were liberated in any of our fields 

 in Apnl or May, I have little doubt they would soon 

 become established. And what an acquisition it 



