BE1TISH SONG BIEDS. 299 



THE SKYLARK. 



There are three kinds of larks, 

 all of which are easily recognised as 

 belonging to the species, by their long 

 hind toes. They all, like the sky- 

 lark, sing while on the wing ; in 

 addition to which the titlark or 

 meadow-pipet sings while sitting on 

 the ground, and the woodlark while 

 perched on the branch of some tree. 

 But the skylark is the sweetest 

 songster of the three. He is the bird 

 that Shakspeare fancied went sing- 

 ing up to the very gates of heaven ; the minstrel of the sky, who 

 makes all the gold and silver pillars in cloudland echo when he 

 warbles in his great star-roofed skyey hall. This is the bird that 

 sleeps beside the daisies and among the gentle lambs ; that makes 

 its nest in any hole that it finds in the ground ; the print of a horse's 

 or bullock's hoof serving as well as anything else in which to deposit 

 its five greenish-white brown spotted eggs. Tens of thousands of 

 these sweet sky-singers are caught, sent to market, sold, cooked, 

 and eaten every year ; and if that isn't worse than keeping them in 

 a cage to sing, why the deuce is in it. How differently we treated 

 them in our boyish days, when we hunted for the green sod which 

 had the most daisies upon it to place in our lark cages for the birds to 

 stand and sing upon. We should as soon have thought of cooking 

 and eating a " blessed babby," as that little singing angel of the 

 heavens, the skylark. But great guttling fellows can't care for the 

 singing of a bird which they would rather eat. They would have 

 fish, flesh, and fowl for dinner, if they broiled the gold-fish that waa 

 swimming in the glass globe, roasted little Jack's pet guinea-pig, 

 and baked the canary under a crust, though it lifted up its pretty 

 little toes imploringly and said ' ' Pray, don't. " They care nothing 

 at all about its praises having been sung by poets of all grades, good, 

 bad, and indifferent, nor its pleasing note being the delight of every 

 lover of nature. The skylark will readily imitate the songs of otfeer 

 birds, and also learn tunes ; in confinement it sings during half the 

 year, and may be tamed so as to come and eat from the hand. The 

 skylark breeds twice a year in temperate seasons, and forms its nest 

 on the ground in high grass, or a wheat-field, or on a common or 

 heath ; the young are hatched by the end of April, and may be 

 taken when about ten or twelve days old ; they should be put in 

 small cages and fed with poppy seeds and the crumb of white bread 

 soaked in milk ; to this food, ants' eggs and a little lean meat will 

 prove a nourishing addition ; some persons give their birds bruised 

 hemp-seed mixed with hard-boiled eggs chopped fine. When young, 

 the male birds may be detected from the females by being yellower in 

 colour, and when arrived at maturity they are larger in size, and not 

 so white on the breast, neither have they so many black spots on the 

 back and breast. The food for full-grown birds consists of German 



