PICTURESQUE ANIMALS. 295 



All animals are picturesque which are consecrated to 

 poetry. In English descriptive poetry the lark is as 

 familiar to us as the rose that clambers around the 

 cottage door. The unrivalled brilliancy of his song 

 which, by description, is impressed on our minds with 

 a vividness almost like that of remembrance, and its 

 continuance after he has soared to an immense height 

 in the air, cause him to be allied in our minds with the 

 sublimity of heaven, as well as with the beauty and 

 splendor of morning. I never had an opportunity to 

 witness the flight of the skylark ; but I have always 

 imagined that the sentiment of sublimity must greatly 

 enhance the pleasure with which we gaze upon his flight 

 and listen to his notes. The very minuteness of an 

 object soaring to such a sublime elevation gives us an 

 idea of some almost supernatural power, and his de 

 lightful song would seem to be derived from heaven, 

 whither he takes his flight while giving utterance to it. 

 We have no skylarks in America; but our common 

 snipes, during the month of May, are addicted to this 

 habit of soaring, as I have remarked in another essay, 

 for a few hours after sunset. I have often watched 

 them in former times, and when witnessing their spiral 

 flight upwards to a great elevation, and listening to 

 their distinct but monotonous warbling after they have 

 arrived at the summit of their ascent, I have been con 

 scious of an emotion of sublimity from a spectacle 

 which might be supposed too trivial to produce any 

 such effect. The picturesque character of the lark is 

 apparent only when he is represented in his soaring 

 flight. There is nothing peculiar in the appearance of 

 this bird as in that of the owl. The sight of him aloft 

 in the heavens is necessary, therefore, to suggest the 



