SKY LARK. 



various insects, and worms. They pair in April, and gene- 

 rally produce two broods in the summer. The nest is 

 placed on the ground, frequently sheltered by a tuft of 

 herbage, or a clod of earth. Grahame, in his poem on 

 the Birds of Scotland, has well contrasted the lowly si- 

 tuation of the nest with the lofty flight of the builder : 



M Thou, simple bird, dwellest in a home 

 The humblest ; yet thy morning song ascends 

 Nearest to Heaven." 



The materials of which the nest is formed, as well as the 

 locality frequently selected for it, are in the same poem 

 thus truly described : 



" The daisied Lea he loves, where tufts of grass 

 Luxuriant crown the ridge ; there, with his mate, 

 He founds their lowly house, of withered bents, 

 And coarsest spear-grass ; next, the inner work 

 With finer, and still finer fibres lays, 

 Rounding it curious with his speckled breast." 



The eggs are four or five in number, of a greyish white 

 ground tinged with green, and mottled nearly all over with 

 darker grey and ash brown ; the length eleven lines, by 

 eight lines and a half in breadth : the young are hatched 

 in about fifteen days. Mr. Selby says, that the young of 

 the first brood are fledged by the end of June, and the 

 second brood are able to fly in August. The strong at- 

 tachment of the parent Lark to its eggs and young has 

 long been known, and a remarkable instance is thus de- 

 scribed by Mr. Blyth in the second volume of The Na- 

 turalist. " The other day some mowers actually shaved 

 off the upper part of the nest of a Sky Lark without in- 

 juring the female, which was sitting on her young ; still 

 she did not fly away, and the mowers levelled the grass 

 all round her without her taking further notice of their 

 proceedings. A young friend of mine, son of the owner 



VOL. I. G G 



