AUGUST. 361 



guilt probably originated. It would seem as if he hid him- 

 self during the day, lest his relationship to a race of beings 

 now almost banished from the earth might be discovered. 

 His emblematical character does not prevent his forming an 

 interesting feature in a rural scene. Hence in pictorial rep- 

 resentations of evening, we see the last rays of the sun 

 streaming upward in beautiful radiations from behind a hill, 

 while the bat is flitting about an old honse, in a rude and 

 rather quiet landscape. 



All animals are picturesque which are consecrated to poe- 

 try. 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 im- 

 pressed on our minds with a vividness almost like that of re- 

 membrance, and its continuance after he has soared to an im- 

 mense 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 sky lark ; but I have always imagined that 

 the sentiment of sublimity must greatly enhance the pleas- 

 ure 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 supernat- 

 ural power, and his delightful song would seem to be derived 

 from heaven, whither he takes his flight while giving utter- 

 ance to it. We have no skylarks in America : but our com- 

 mon meadow larks, 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 monot- 

 onous warbling after they have arrived at the summit of their 

 ascent, I have been conscious of an emotion of sublimity 

 from a spectacle which might be supposed too trivial to pro- 

 duce any such efl"ect. 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 



VOL. XXI. NO. VIII. 46 



