one observer will chronicle the departure of The 



the skylarks before Summer-end, at the early **|?~"* 



of March 

 close there of the nesting season, and how 



another, not less accurate, will note the 



presence weeks later of larks in apparently as 



great a number as ever. The islanders have 



gone, to seek the south : the newcomers from 



Scandinavia have taken their place. But here 



also, as elsewhere, the conditions of the weather 



will be more potent than even the summons 



of the spirit of migration : a severe frost will 



for a time clear a whole region of the tufted 



birdeens, a prolonged frost will drive them 



away from that region for the winter. 



The Lark, then, so often apostrophised as the 

 first voice of Spring, is by no means specifically 

 the Herald of March. When we see his brown 

 body breasting the air - waves of the March 

 wind, it may not be the welcome migrant 

 from the South we see, with greenness in his 

 high aerial note and the smell of hay and wild 

 roses in the o'ercome of his song, but a winter- 

 exile from a far mountain-vale in Scandinavia 

 or from the snowbound wastes of Co inland or 

 Westphalia. 



The Woodlark, the Chiff-Chaff, and the rest, 

 all are heralds of March. But as we identify 

 certain birds with certain seasons and certain 

 qualities ... as the Swallow with April, and 



95 



