I2O OUR IRISH SONG BIRDS. 



SKYLARK. 

 Alauda arvensis ; Alouette des champs ; HeidelercJie. 



Beak, legs, and toes, brown ; hind-claw, very long and 

 slightly curved ; head, back, and wings, different shades 

 of brown ; a crest can be erected at pleasure ; neck and 

 breast, whitish, with brown streaks. Length, seven 

 inches and a quarter. 



This is one of the best-known and most widely appre- 

 ciated of all our Irish Song Birds. For the Skylark 

 shares with .the Linnet the honour of being " the poor 

 man's bird." With the Dublin shoemakers it is an 

 especial favourite, and its cage, with its sod of turf under 

 the bird's feet, may be seen outside the windows of some 

 of the poorest houses in our city ; for, as our carpenter 

 remarks, the shoemakers of Dublin are more " affable " 

 with the Skylark than with any other bird. To my 

 mind, however, there is something inexpressibly sad in 

 the caged Skylark's song. I cannot bear to see the poor 

 prisoner beat his wings and breast against the bars, as 

 he pines for liberty and for the home above which he 

 sang so sweetly in happier days. In an interesting 

 Paper on the Skylark, in Poultry, January 2, 1884, Dr. 

 W. T. Greene tells us that there are Skylarks who will 

 neither eat, drink, nor sleep, but who sing themselves to 

 death when caged ; and I entirely agree with his con- 

 clusions, not only that the bird is one which, of all 

 others, it is the height of cruelty to keep prisoner, but 

 also one whose wonderful song is quite unfitted for a 

 room. Heard, as we usually hear it, from a great dis- 

 tance, and thus mellowed and modulated, the effect is 

 by no means so pleasing if the bird be close beside you. 



