

DISTINGUISHING PECULIARITIES. 167 



meadows and opening flowers ; and when he has sated himself with 

 the sweetness of earth, he wings his flight up to heaven, as if he 

 would drink in the melody of the morning stars. Hark to that 

 note ! How it comes thrilling down upon the ear ! What a stream 

 of music, note falling over note in delicious cadence ! Who would 

 trouble his head about operas and concerts, when he could walk in 

 the fields, and hear such music for nothing ? There are homilies in 

 Nature's works, worth all the wisdom of the schools, if we could but 

 read them rightly ; and one of the most pleasant lessons I ever re- 

 ceived in a time of trouble, was from hearing the note of a Lark. 



From Mudie's l Feathered Tribes of the British Islands ' 

 we quote the following animated description of the distin- 

 guishing peculiarities of this species : 



The Skylark, or, as is more accurately expressed by the specific 

 name, the ' Field Lark ' (only that name has been misapplied to the 

 Field Pipet), is the most universal of the British songsters. It 

 inhabits near the dwellings of man, rather than in the bleak wastes, 

 because neither the seeds nor the insects which are produced in these 

 are suited for it ; but it inhabits the peopled districts abundantly, in 

 all their varieties of latitude, soil, and climate, and, though it might 

 have been previously unknown there, when man has turned the 

 furrow on the waste, and replaced the heath, the moss, and the rush 

 by a more kindly vegetation, the Lark is sure to come with its song 

 of gratitude, to reveiller him to the field betimes, and cheer his 

 labours the live-long day. 



Larks, from their vast numbers, flock much and fly far in the 

 winter, and flock more to the uplands in the middle of England, 

 where much rain usually falls in the summer, than to the drier and 

 warmer places near the shores ; but so true are they to their time, 

 that, be it in the south, the centre, or the north, the Lark is always 

 ready, on the first gleamy day of the year, to mount to its watch- 

 tower in the upper sky, and proclaim the coming of the vernal 

 season. It is, in fact, more joy ant in the sun, more inspirable by 

 the life which the solar influence diffuses through the atmosphere, 

 than almost any other creature. Not a spring air can sport, not a 

 breeze of morn can play, not an exhalation of freshness from opening 

 bud or softening clod can ascend, without note of it being taken and 

 proclaimed by this all-sentient index to the progress of nature. 



And the form and manner of the indication are as delightful as 

 the principle is true. The Lark rises, not like most birds, which 

 climb the air upon one slope, by a succession of leaps, as if a heavy 

 body were raised by a succession of efforts or steps, with pauses 

 between : it twines upward like a vapour, borne lightly on the atmos- 

 phere, and yielding to the motions of that as other vapours do. Its 

 course is a spiral, gradually enlarging, and, seen on the side, it is as 

 if it were keeping the boundary of a pillar of ascending smoke, 



