THE LARKS. 51 



of the male and female bird, the only distinction of colour is that in 

 the latter the tints are somewhat duller. During 1 the first autumn 

 the young may be distinguished by the buff edgings to their feathers. 

 This is not a very full and satisfactory account of our pretty foreign 

 visitor, but it is the best that our authorities, the British naturalists, 

 enable us to give, so we must be content therewith. 



THE WOOD LARK, 



(Alauda arbor ca.) 



PLATE IV. FIGURE III. 



NATURALISTS give to each of the creatures they classify two names, 

 one generic, indicating the genus; the other specific showing the species; 

 the greater divisions are classes, orders, and families, with which we 

 need not trouble ourselves; and each of these names has a meaning, 

 the understanding of which greatly assists the student of ornithology, 

 or any other oology. So if our sweet chanter of the woods were to 

 send in her card, we should know at once, first that she was a Lark, 

 and next that she was of, or belonging to, the trees a Wood Lark. 

 She has also been called A. cristatus, because she has a crest, which, 

 however, is not a great distinction, for nearly all Larks have this, 

 although they do not so often erect it into what in the human head 

 is called a " Brutus," (why we cannot tell,) as the Sky Lark does. Yet 

 another name has our shy songster A. lulu, because some of her notes 

 have a mournful expression, like lu-lu, lu-lu, long drawn out. It is 

 a sweet strain, nevertheless; some have compared it to that of the 

 Nightingale, but it wants the fulness and richness of melody which 

 so delights the ear and satisfies the mind, as we listen to the dulcet 

 notes of Philomel, the Queen of Song, as the poets have well called 

 this favourite bird 



If you want to hear the Wood Lark in her greatest perfection, go 

 in the nesting time, the season of love, when the bird's life is most 

 full of joy and happiness. Go where the grassy meadow or the corn- 

 field runs up close to the leafy woodland; there you will see the happy 

 creature springing' up from the ground, where its nest is hidden, much 

 as the Sky Lark does, singing all the while, not so shrilly nor loudly 

 r.s that. 



