one observer will chronicle the departure of The 



the skylarks before Summer-end, at the early 

 i li * it. j.- j u of March, 



close there of the nesting season, and how 



another, not less accurate, will note the 

 presence weeks later of larks in apparently as 

 great a number as ever. The islanders have 

 gone, to seek the south : the newcomers from 

 Scandinavia have taken their place. But here 

 also, as elsewhere, the conditions of the weather 

 will be more potent than even the summons 

 of the spirit of migration : a severe frost will 

 for a time clear a whole region of the tufted 

 birdeens, a prolonged frost will drive them 

 away from that region for the winter. 



The Lark, then, so often apostrophised as the 

 first voice of Spring, is by no means specifically 

 the Herald of March. When we see his brown 

 body breasting the air - waves of the March 

 wind, it may not be the welcome migrant 

 from the South we see, with greenness in his 

 high aerial note and the smell of hay and wild 

 roses in the o'ercome of his song, but a winter- 

 exile from a far mountain-vale in Scandinavia 

 or from the snowbound wastes of Courland or 

 Westphalia. 



The Woodlark, the Chiff-Chaff, and the rest, 

 all are heralds of March. But as we identify 

 certain birds with certain seasons and certain 

 qualities ... as the Swallow with April, and 



95 



