WOOD LARK. 9 







bush or tuft of grass, or at the foot of a tree; occasionally 

 under the shelter of a fence or paling, or on a bank; one 

 has been known on the trunk of a fallen oak, on the topmost 

 bough of which, perhaps, in previous years when it still stood 

 in all its pride, the bird had warbled forth her strains, and 

 now when levelled with the earth, she 'could not bid the 

 spot adieu,' but sang a daily requiem over the fallen remains. 

 The outside materials are small roots, grass, and sometimes 

 moss, and the lining smaller grasses, with occasionally a little 

 hair. 



The eggs, which are laid at the end of March or beginning 

 of April, and also in July, there seeming to be two broods 

 in the year, are four or five in number, of a pale reddish 

 white, or yellowish brown ground colour, spotted and speckled 

 with dull reddish brown, or dark grey, or brownish grey, 

 with sometimes a few irregular dusky lines at the larger end. 



Male; weight, about eight drachms; length, a little more 

 than six inches; bill, dark brown on the upper part, the 

 lower one and the base of the upper one, pale yellowish brown; 

 iris, dark brown: over it is a pale brown or yellowish white 

 streak. The feathers about the base of the bill are bristly 

 at the tips; a sort of crest is formed by the feathers on the 

 top of the head, which are of a light brown colour, streaked 

 with dark brown; neck on the back, yellowish brown, on the 

 sides, reddish; nape, brown, streaked with dark brownish black; 

 chin and throat, pale yellowish brown, with a reddish tinge; 

 breast, pale yellowish brown, with a few small streaked spots 

 of dark brown on the middle part; back, light reddish brown 

 on the upper part, brown on the lower, dashed with dark 

 brownish black near the tips of the feathers. 



The wings expand to the width of one foot and half an 

 inch, and extend to within rather less than an inch of the 

 end of the tail; the first feather is very short, the second 

 not quite so long as the third or the fourth, which latter 

 is the longest in the wing; the fifth nearly as long as the 

 second: Yarrell gives the third as the longest. Greater wing 

 coverts, dark brown, tipped wi^h pale brown; lesser wing 

 coverts, dark brown, some of them tipped with pale brown, 

 both making two rather conspicuous bands across the wings; 

 primaries and secondaries, dusky brown, edged and tipped with 

 light reddis'h brown; tertiaries, dark brown, edged with light 

 brown. The tail, which is short, of twelve feathers, square 

 at the tip, has the outer feather on each side pale brown, 



