20 BRITISH BIRDS 



The Lark. Next, perhaps, in the rank of song-birds, at least in 



our country, comes the lark, of whom Shakespeare and 90 

 Shelley and Wordsworth and the Ettrick Shepherd 

 have sung in strains which should be familiar to every 

 one. Thomson also, though not in lyrical rapture, 

 celebrates the lark : he recurs to it again and again. 

 It is the bird of the grassy wilderness and the soaring 

 sky. Blithesome and cumberless, it ascends to Heaven's 

 gate, ever singing as it soars in a flight almost vertical. 

 It is the merry lark, the ploughman's clock ; cheering 

 him also at his work, and his lusty steers as well, as 

 they pull the shining share up and down long stretches 100 

 of monotonous lea the livelong day. It is the most 

 alert of all birds of a summer morning, heard even in 

 the early starlit darkness anticipating and announcing 

 the grey-breaking dawn. It is the shrillness of its 

 voice that takes the ear, its strain a continuous line of 

 silver melody. 



The The note of the thrush is quite different, as are also 



/jrr ir 



its habitat and its habits and style. Perched on the 

 topmost twig of a dewy bush on a spring morning, it 

 uplifts a triumphant voice, like the voice of a solo- 110 

 singer, above the chorus of indistinguishable or less 

 distinguished singers distributed about the copse. The 

 whistle of the blackbird, the mellow fluting of the 

 bullfinch, the piping of innumerable linnets are its 

 orchestral supporters. 



Migratory Then there are the swallow and the cuckoo, which, 

 however, though entitled to a place within the charm- 

 ing circle of song-birds, are best known as migrants 

 that come in the spring and go with departing 

 summer. There is further the migratory corncrake, 120 

 whose harsh grating, though persistently self-recom- 



