SKY LARK. 47 



proper eggs, this nest contained a Cuckoo's egg. The nest is 

 made of brents, lined with the same arid some hairs. The eggs 

 are from four to six, and vary in colour. Mr. Yarrell's descrip- 

 tion is, " of a reddish brown colour, mottled over with darker 

 brown. 3 ' The red is hardly discoverable, if at all, in some 

 I have, and I should have said "dusky brown." Fig.%1, plate III. 



84. ROCK PIPIT. (Anthus petrosm). 



Dusky Lark, Rock Lark, Field Lark, Sea Titling, Sea Lintie. 

 This bird, it seems, was lon^ confounded with the two last. It 

 is seldom met with far inland, and is not always found near 

 rocks, notwithstanding its name. It is a ground-builder, and 

 where there are rocks handy, the nest is very likely to be on 

 their ledges, if only a little grass or the like grows there. It is 

 composed of various dry grasses, and contains four or five eggs 

 of a greenish cast, and mottled with dusky brown or dark 

 cinereous markings. 



85. RICHARD'S PIPIT. (Anthus Eicardi). 

 Only an occasional visitor to our shores. 



2. CONIROSTRES. 

 FAMILY I. ALAUDIDJE. 



86. SHORE LARK. (Alauda alpestris). 

 Only a very few of these birds have been nfet with in Britain 

 87. SKY LARK. (Alauda arvensis). 



Lark, Field Lark, Lavrock. Very few words of description 

 are requisite in the case of this everywhere familiar and favourite 

 songster. Tip in the sky, and soaring still, he pours out his 



oyous strains, suggesting to us much more forcibly than any 

 other bird does in its song the thought that it is offering praise 

 and thanks to Him who made and preserves the fowl that fly in 



;he air, as well as all other creatures. So that the thought in 



he old German Hymn, 



" Hark ! Hark ! the Lark at Heaven's gate sings," 



seems not fanciful to us, but solemn truth. Once last summer 1 

 was speaking the solemn words, " dust to dust, ashes to ashes," 

 over a dead parishioner, followed as they so soon are by the telling 

 of our " sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection," when a 

 Sky Lark, right over our heads, broke out into his sweet, simple, 

 .hankful, hopeful, joyous melody, and by it spoke to more sad 



