•264 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE LARK. 



the continent. Whether they come to us at a 

 more wary season we do not know. However, 

 they become sufficiently tame when they suffer 

 from a deficiency of food in hard weather ; hut are 

 then not so worthy the aim of the true sportsman, as 

 when they are full and fat. 



The Lark [Alanda arvensis, Linn.). — One of our 

 poets thus addresses this sweet warbler : — 



" Hail to thee, blithe spirit I 

 Bird thou never wert, 

 That from heaven, or near it, 

 Pourest thy full heart 

 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 



Higher still and higher, 



From the earth thou springe'St ; 

 Like a cloud of fire, 



The blue deep thou wlngest, 

 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 



What objects are the fountains 



Of thy happy strain ? 

 What fields, or waves, or mountains? 

 What shapes of sky or plain ? 

 What love of thy own kind ? What ignorance of pain ? " 



Shelle'x. 



It is, indeed, true of this bird, the ftivourite of the 

 skiey space, that its song is gladsome and enlivening ; 

 and that as it darts upwards, in the clear radiance of 

 dawn, its exulting and far-reaching note appears the 

 harbinger of fullest day. The lark is a salacious bird ; 

 nor is it difficult to form a hybrid between it and the 

 linnet, and other small birds. 



