THE SKY-LARK. 175 



female, the so-called ' shoulder ' then appears to be much more angular in the 

 former than in the latter sex. I have seen considerable numbers of birds thus 

 tested, the males being caged and the females returned to the catchers, and I 

 never knew the test to fail : but females are rarely forwarded by experienced bird- 

 catchers, most of them being killed at the nets and sold to the poulterers. 



Although abundant enough on moors and commons, downs, grassy cliffs, and 

 even mountains, the Sky- Lark certainly prefers arable land, pastures, and parks : 

 it seems especially to delight in fields of clover : it shuns all places thickly 

 studded with trees, such as woods, copses, and plantations, but is almost always 

 to be met with in country cemeteries. 



Excepting when in pursuit of another individual of its own species, the flight 

 of the Sky- Lark does not strike one as being particularly rapid ; it is somewhat 

 undulating, and there is a fluttering motion, even when it is crossing a field, which 

 is very characteristic. The male, when soaring, always commences its upward 

 flight with this butterfly-like hovering action, and sometimes it is continued until 

 it reaches its highest elevation ; at other times it rises obliquely and rapidly, its 

 song the whole time fitting its movements : in its descent it sometimes drops 

 abruptly perhaps for forty or fifty feet, pauses a second and drops again, making 

 perhaps three or four stages in its fall, until, as it nears the ground, it flutters 

 round in a half-circle to the earth ; each drop being accompanied by the finishing 

 shrill whee, whee, whee of its song : often it comes down with a wide graceful sweep. 



The nest is placed in a depression in the ground, generally amongst growing 

 crops, often merely sheltered on one side by an overhanging tuft of coarse grass 

 or other vegetation, and sometimes without any shelter whatever ; a singular nest 

 with a kind of lid formed of water-weed, which was pointed out to me by a 

 shepherd in the Isle of Sheppy, is described in my ' Handbook.' The nest itself 

 is more or less loosely constructed of dried bents and dead grass, and lined with 

 finer grass-stalks. The eggs number from four to five, and sometimes three may 

 be found incubated, but it is doubtful whether so small a number ever represents 

 a full clutch : in ground-colour they vary a good deal white, whity-brown, buffish 

 clay-coloured, or pale olive-green ; generally densely mottled with olive or smoky 

 grey-brown over the entire surface, but frequently with a denser zone at the larger, 

 and more rarely at the smaller end ; sometimes there are a few scattered streaks 

 and spots of deeper brown. The most aberrant egg which I have seen was one 

 lent to me for illustration in my 'Handbook' (pi. XI, fig. n) which bears a 

 curious resemblance to some eggs of the Common Bunting ; it is white with a 

 deep brown patch at the larger end, shading into sienna and slightly macular 

 along its inferior margin. 



