66 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



of Montbeillard, who says, *' a hundred dozen or 

 more are sometimes taken at once, and it is reckoned 

 very bad sport when only twenty-five dozen are got*." 

 It would indeed require such numbers to liquidate the 

 expense of the snares employed, it being usual to 

 plant about two thousand limed willow rods in 

 one field. On the Continent this is reckoned a 

 princely sport ; and the French nobility were also 

 wont to be fond of it. But in England lark fowling 

 is only followed by bird-catchers, who chiefly use 

 a day clap net, or a night net, and a low bell, with 

 which they take the larks at roost in stubble-fields. 

 Though these larks, however, associate in such nu- 

 merous flocks during the winter, no sooner does the 

 pairing season commence than they separate again, 

 each pair choosing a particular field, or a portion of 

 a field, for a breeding place. 



What we have said of larks will nearly apply to 

 linnets, chaffinches, the two house-swallows, and se- 

 veral other species of our indigenous birds, which 

 breed in solitary pairs, and congregate at the ap- 

 proach of winter. It is worthy of remark, that most, 

 if not all, of these broods are more or less migratory, 

 either leaving the country altogether or shifting from 

 one district to another ; and, looking at the facts in 

 this point of view, we may plausibly conjecture that 

 the young broods take advantage of the experience of 

 the older birds in removing to a more genial climate, 

 or to places more abounding in food. Yet how plau- 

 sible soever this may appear (and to us it seems 

 almost the only solution of the difficulty), we meet 

 with many species apparently in the same or very si- 

 milar circumstances, which never congregate, or at 

 Ifeast very partially. The pipits (Anthi), for example, 

 whose habits and appearance so nearly resemble the 

 larks that they are usually called titlarks, never 

 * Oiseaux, Art. L'Alouette. 



