EUROPEAN LARKS. 91 



EUROPEAN LARKS. 



SKY LARK. 



IT is a bright spot to look back upon, in the 

 sunny days of our youth, when in the fields, on 

 a fine summer morning, we listened to this de- 

 lightful warbler, and gazed upon him in his up- 

 ward flight, until lost to our view. We could 

 still hear him, though faintly, and still gaze up, 

 and wonder how high he would go, until again 

 he would come into view descending, and carrol- 

 ling his joyful lay all the while; and on coming 

 near he would stop singing, and shutting his 

 wings would descend rapidly to the earth, in 

 a slanting direction. The song of the Sky Lark 

 is one continued strain of cheerful warbling notes, 

 sometimes uttered high, and sometimes low. He 

 enlivens the labors of the husbandman, is the 

 theme of the poet, and in all illustrations of rural 

 scenery he stands prominent. 



These delightful warblers will sing well in a 

 cage, which should be eighteen inches long, at 

 least to give them room to run. At one end of 



