310 APPENDIX BY THE 



some half a dozen birds, all of the finch tribe ap- 

 peared standing on their heads, playing at sentinel, 

 mounting guard, imitating milkmaids going to market 

 with tiny pails on their shoulders, acting as cannoniers, 

 armed cap-a-pie, firelock on the shoulder, match in the 

 claw, actually discharging a small cannon ! 



NOTE Y. 



THE SKY-LAEK, (alanda arcensis') p. 184. 



" It is, in fact, more joyous in the sun, more inspirable 

 by the life which the solar influence diffuses through tho 

 atmosphere, than almost any other creature : not a spring 

 air can sport, not a breeze of morn can play, not an exha- 

 lation of freshness from opening bud or softening clod 

 can ascend, without note of it being taken and proclaimed 

 by this all-sufficient index to the progress of nature. The 

 lark rises not like most birds, which climb the air upon 

 one slope, by succession of leaps, as if a heavy body was 

 raised by a succession of efforts, or steps, with pauses 

 between ; it towers upward like a vapor, borne lightly 

 in the atmosphere, and yielding to the motion of that as 

 vapors do. Its course is a spiral, gradually enlarging, 

 * * * The accordance of the song with the mode of 

 ascent and descent is also worthy of note. It gives a 

 swelling song as it ascends, and a sinking one when it 

 comes down ; and even if it take but one wheel in the 

 air, as that wheel always includes either an ascent or a 

 descent, it varies the pitch of the song." 



" Every one in the least conversant with the structure 

 of birds, must be aware that with them, tue organs of 

 intonation and modulation are inward, deriving little 

 assistance from the tongue, and nono, or next to none, 

 from the mandibles of the bill. The windpipe is tho 



