MELLOW ENGLAND. 183 



Before I had got fifty yards from the station I 

 began to hear the larks, and being unprepared for 

 them I was a little puzzled at first, but was not long 

 in discovering what luck I was in. The song disap- 

 pointed me at first, being less sweet and melodious 

 than I had expected to hear, indeed I thought it a 

 little sharp and harsh, a little stubbly, but in 

 other respects, in strength and gladness and continu- 

 ity, it was wonderful. And the more I heard it the 

 better I liked it, until I would gladly have given any 

 of my songsters at home for a bird that could shower 

 down such notes, even in autumn. Up, up, went the 

 bird, describing a large easy spiral till he attained an 

 altitude of three or four hundred feet, when, spread 

 out against the sky for a space of ten or fifteen min- 

 utes, or more, he poured out his delight, filling all the 

 vault with sound. The song is of the sparrow kind, 

 and, in its best parts, perpetually suggested the notes 

 of our vesper sparrow ; but the wonder of it is its copi- 

 ousness and sustained strength. There is no theme, 

 no beginning, middle, or end, like most of our best 

 bird songs, but a perfect swarm of notes pouring out 

 like bees from a hive and resembling each other 

 nearly as closely, and only ceasing as the bird nears 

 the earth again. We have many more melodious 

 songsters ; the bobolink in the meadows, for instance; 

 the vesper sparrow in the pastures, the purple finch 

 in the groves, the winter wren, or any of the thrushes 

 in the woods, or the wood-wagtail, whose air song is 

 of a similar character to that of the skylark's, and is 



