WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 15 



dashed to pieces ; but when within a few yards of 

 the ground the wings are outstretched, and she glides 

 along some distance before alighting. This latter 

 motion makes it difficult to tell where a lark actually 

 does alight. So, too, with snipe : they appear to 

 drop in a corner of the brook, and you feel positive 

 that a certain bunch of rushes is the precise place ; 

 but before you get there the snipe is up again under 

 your feet, ten or fifteen yards closer than you sup- 

 posed, having shot along hidden by the banks, just 

 above the water, out of sight. 



Sometimes, after soaring to an unusual elevation, 

 the lark comes down, as.it were, in one or two stages : 

 after dropping say fifty feet the wings are employed, 

 and she shoots forward horizontally some way, which 

 checks the velocity. Repeating this twice or more, 

 she reaches the ground safely. In rising up to sing 

 she often traces a sweeping spiral in the air at first, 

 going round once or twice ; after which, seeming to 

 settle on the line she means to ascend, she goes up 

 almost perpendicularly in a series of leaps, as it were 

 pausing a moment to gather impetus, and then shoot- 

 ing upwards till a mere speck in the sky. When ten 

 or twelve larks are singing at once, all within a narrow 

 radius a thing that may be often witnessed from 

 these downs in the spring the charm of their viva-' 

 cious notes is greater than when one solitary bird 

 alone discourses sweet music which is lost in the blue 

 dome overhead. 



At that time they seem to feed only a few minutes 



