176 THE SKY-LARK. 



must be very clean and neat, otherwise a thread or hair may entangle the 

 feet, and if not removed it easily cuts the skin, maims the bird, and the 

 entangled toes shrink and fall off. 



FOOD. When wild, the food consists of insects, especially ants' eggs ; 

 also of all kinds of seeds, and in autumn of oats, which these birds skin 

 by striking them against the ground, their beak being too weak to shell 

 them alone. In the spring the sprouting seeds and young buds, also the 

 blades of young grass, are eaten, and grains of sand help their digestion. 



In the house, if the lark is hopping about, nothing is better than the 

 first universal paste described in the Introduction ; but if caged the second 

 will suit it better. Poppy-seed, bruised hemp, crumb of bread, and plenty 

 of greens, as lettuce, endive, cabbage, or water-cress, according to the 

 season, must be added. A little lean meat and ants' eggs are favourite 

 delicacies, which make it gay and more inclined to sing. When old larks 

 are first made prisoners, they must be fed only with oats and poppy-seed to 

 reconcile them to captivity. 



BREEDING. The lark lays but once a year in cold countries, twice in 

 the temperate, and three times in the warmer climates. Its nest, formed 

 on the ground in a little hollow, is made without much art of straw, and 

 the wool and hair of animals, and by preference in hollow ground or among 

 the summer crops of grain. The eggs, in number from three to five, are 

 of a whitish gray, spotted and dotted with dark gray ; incubation lasts four- 

 teen days. By the end of April the young are often hatched, and are at 

 first only fed with insects, and leave the nest before they can fly ; but they 

 nevertheless continue to be fed by the mother till they can follow her in 

 her excursions. Before the first moulting all the upper part of the body 

 is dotted with white ; if it is wished to take nestlings, they must be re- 

 moved from the nest when the tail is about three quarters of an inch long. 

 They are fed with crumb of white bread, and poppy-seed steeped in milk 

 some ants' eggs or a little minced lean meat will be a wholesome addition. 

 The males are soon distinguished by their yellow colour. If it is intended 

 to teach them to perform a tune, their instructor must commence before 

 they are ready to fly, for by that time they already begin to record their 

 natural song. They must also be completely separated from other singing 

 birds, otherwise the great flexibility of their organs, joined to their me- 

 mory, will infallibly cause them to adopt the song of such birds as they 

 are near ; and even old larks, brought into my bird-room, have learnt 

 to imitate perfectly the nightingale and chaffinch. They vary, however, 

 very much in this respect. Some females in confinement lay without the 

 presence of a male, and others pair, but I have never yet succeeded in 

 making them sit. One of my neighbours, notwithstanding the greatest 

 care, has succeeded no better, though he had a female which laid from 

 twenty to twenty-five eggs annually. There would undoubtedly be a better 

 chance of success in a large garden aviary*. 



* If it is difficult to induce larks to sit, it appears to be very easy to make them 

 take care of a young brood. 



" The instinct," says Bufibn, " which induces hen larks to bring up and watch 

 over a brood appears sometimes very early, even before that which disposes them 



