262 WAGTAILS AND PIPITS 



bird world. If there be, we must seek for it where we find the 

 analogy. It is matter of taste. In the ever-upward flight of the 

 lark that one that alone we call "the" in those "skiey" circlings 

 from which far-off music falls, there is that, undoubtedly, to take, 

 wholly, an aspiring spirit, whilst charming all. But so high does the 

 bird mount that he is soon wellnigh invisible, and his song, faint 

 though beautiful, becomes more and more dissociated from his 

 bodily being, till it floats, a song alone. Then when he sinks, at last, 

 it is as a stranger, from celestial regions, that he comes, condescending 

 towards, rather than familiarly rejoining us. But in that quick 

 little up-blossoming flight from the tree-topending so soon with 

 the hovering pause and gracious, soft return, there is something that 

 catches one like a human feeling, something of ruth and compunc- 

 tion, of tenderness almost, a weakness more winning than a 

 strength. It is as though the bird parted and in full flight for 

 heaven remembered something that it could not leave, looked back, 

 relented, and gave its song to earth. It will, indeed, sing on the 

 ground and so will the skylark too sometimes as melodiously as 

 it does in the air, though, to compromise matters, it does not descend 

 directly upon it, but into the tree from which it has mounted or else 

 another one and so down at leisure. 



This rising and returning flight, with song, is the leading charac- 

 teristic, as it seems to me, of all our three pipits for we have 

 hardly more as it is of both the skylark and woodlark. In his 

 rising from the ground, as well as in the superior height to which he 

 attains, A. pratensis approaches nearer to the skylark than does 

 A. trivialis, though in the song itself, which is the root of the matter, 

 he comes behind them both. Still it is a sweet little strophe, heard 

 over such barren acres as the bird loves "ling, heath, broom, 

 furze, anything" often marsh or fenland, amidst the snipe's bleat, 

 the peewit's "coo-ee," and the musical wail of the redshanks. The 

 descent, here, is almost wholly lark-like, especially in the plunge 

 before alighting, the little sweep on again, almost as the feet touch 



