THE SKY-LARK. 227 



home near them. Some of the sweetest of our 

 singing birds come to our gardens and shrubberies, 

 or utter their strains about our paths and homes; 

 while some, like the sky-lark, are musicians of the 

 fields, and we have only to take our coui'se where 

 the gi'cen corn is gradually preparing for the food 

 of man, and there we shall find tones which we 

 should listen for in vain among the shadows of 

 gi'een boughs. He who made the earth and man 

 upon it, gave us not only the materials which our 

 skill might fashion into sources of physical comfort; 

 but he scattered there, too, the sights which should 

 delight the eye, and tones which should minister 

 to the spirit through the outward ear. 



Winter is here, and the frosts and snows of 

 yesterday have left their diamonds on the leafless 

 sprays and the green blades, and thrown large white 

 patches over the field. In a few hours the sun 

 shall bid them all glide away from the land, for 

 the air is clear, and the sky is blue, and the Lark* 



* The Sky -lark is seven inches and a quarter in length. Head 

 crested ; general plumage brown, dark in the centre, and pale at 

 the edges ; outer tail-feather white ; the next streaked with white ; 

 throat and breast pale browTi spotted with dark brown ; under 

 pai-ts dull white ; beak and feet brown ; hind claw very long and 

 nearly straight. 



