SKY LARK. 15 



as it were, in the 'open firmament of Heaven,' one of the 

 'fowls that may fly' there, by the permission given to them 

 from the Great Creator when they were first called into ex- 

 istence? I think it is old Izaak Walton who says '0 God! 

 what happiness must Thou have prepared for Thy saints in 

 Heaven, when Thou hast provided Lad men with such enjoy- 

 ments upon earth!' In descending, too, the same clear note 

 is still heard, and it is sometimes continued again after the 

 bird has alighted on the ground, and is occasionally uttered 

 by it when perched on a bush, and sometimes when hovering 

 over a field at but a little height. It has been heard long- 

 after sunset, even when the night had become quite dark. If 

 you have a Lark in a cage, give him his liberty, and make 

 him happy. 



And not only is the song of the Sky Lark thus beautiful, 

 but it is abundantly bestowed upon us. It is to be heard 

 throughout three quarters of the year, nay, one may almost 

 say, in some degree, throughout the year, for in the beginning 

 of January in the present year, I think I heard, as others 

 have before, an attempt at it. Mr. Macgillivray has heard 

 the full song in Fifeshire, an appropriate locality, on the 13th. 

 of February, and again on the 12th. of March, 1835. It is 

 also uttered on the ground, from the top of a clod, or even 

 in the concealment of the grass, as well as in the air, though 

 not so much so in the former case. It is commenced as early 

 as half-past one and two o'clock in the morning, and is 

 continued at intervals till after the sun has again gone down. 

 The female sings as well as the male. In the winter a faint 

 chirp is the ordinary note. 



When 'April showers' begin to give promise of returning 

 spring, or even earlier, in the beginning of March, as I have 

 myself seen them, and in February, the Larks begin to 

 separate from their companions of the winter months, with 

 whom since the autumn they have associated in large straggling 

 flocks, and form their 're-unions,' of a very different nature 

 to those of the fashionable world. In the one there is that, 

 of which in the other there is none; and this, as Aristotle 

 says, makes 'not a little but the whole difference.' Two 

 broods are frequently reared in the year, the first of which 

 is fledged by the middle or end of June, or even the middle 

 of May, the eggs being laid the end of April or beginning 

 of May; and the second in August, the eggs being laid in 

 June or July. In confinement, three and even four sets of 



