290 TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 



on its head and the black spot on its breast, for 

 doubtless his strange bird was the shore-lark, a 

 northern bird, that comes to us in flocks in the 

 late fall or early winter, and in recent years has 

 become a permanent resident of certain parts of 

 New York State. I have heard it in full song 

 above the hills in Delaware County, after the 

 manner of the English skylark, but its song 

 was a crude, feeble, broken affair compared with 

 that of the skylark. These birds thrive well 

 in confinement. I had one seven months in a 

 cage while living in Washington. It was dis- 

 abled in the wing by a gunner, who brought it 

 to me. Its wound soon healed; it took food 

 readily; it soon became tame, and was an ob- 

 ject of much interest and amusement. The 

 cage in which I had hastily put it was formerly 

 a case filled with stufi'ed birds. Its front was 

 glass. As it was left out upon the porch over 

 night, a strange cat discovered the bird through 

 this glass, and through the glass she plunged 

 and captured the bird. In the morning there 

 was the large hole in this glass, and the pretty 

 lark was gone. I have always indulged a faint 

 hope that the glass was such a surprise to the 

 cat, and made such a racket about her eyes and 

 ears as she sprang against it, that she beat a 

 hasty retreat, and that the bird escaped through 

 the break. 



II 



In May two boys in town wrote to me to 

 explain to them the meaning of the egg-shells, 



