NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



' 



Clap-nets Trammel net* Food. 



taken in such numbers; but also in the country 

 about Naumburg, Merseburg, Halle, and other 

 parts. Those caught in the day-time are taker* 

 in clap-nets, of fifteen yards in length, and two 

 and a half in breadth; and nre enticed by means 

 of bits of looking-glass fixed in a piece of wood, 

 and placed in the middle of the nets. These are 

 put in a quick whirling motion, by a string which 

 the larker commands; he also makes use of a 

 decoy bird. This kind of nets are used only till 

 the fourteenth of November; for the larks will 

 not frolic in the air, and of course cannot be in- 

 veigled in this manner, except in fine sunny wea- 

 ther. When the weather grows gloomy, the 

 'larker changes his engine ; and makes use of a 

 trammel-net, *twenly*seven or twenty-eight feet 

 long, and five broad; which is put on two poles, 

 eighteen feet long, and carried by men, who pass 

 over the fields and quarter the ground as a set- 

 ting-dog would ; when they hear or feel that a 

 lark has hit the net, they drop it down, and so 

 the birds are taken. 



The common food of the young skylarks is 

 worms and insects \ but after they are grown up 

 they live chiefly on seeds, herbage, and most 

 other vegetable substances. 



The female forms her nest on the ground, ge- 

 nerally between two clods of earth, and lines it 

 \vith dried grass and roots. In this she lays tour 

 or five brown eggs, with brownish specks, which 

 re hatched in about a fortnight; and she gene- 



