176 THE WOODLARK. 



dance of the worms and seeds that make its daily food. 

 Its flight is peculiar. It does not rise in the air, as most 

 birds do, with one sidelong motion, but by a succession 

 of leaps or stages, as if it were springing from terrace to 

 terrace ; or it may be said to twist upward, like a wreath 

 of smoke, as if it were supported by, and partly yielded 

 to, the impulse of the atmosphere. Its song is in accord- 

 ance with its manner of flight. It swells or sinks in 

 harmony with the bird's various ascending efforts, and 

 bursts into one full bold excellent strain only when it has 

 reached the topmost height, where it remains poised above 

 the earth, like a star. 



It is a handsome bird, about nine inches long ; but its 

 plumage is soberly coloured — a light reddish brown, 

 spotted and streaked with black on the upper parts, and 

 with brown on the under. The bill is conical and robust ; 

 the tail somewhat long ; and long, too, are the slender legs 

 and toes. 



Very similar, nay, almost identical, in the colour and 

 markings of its plumage, is the Woodlark ; but it is a 

 smaller bird, with a slenderer bill and a shorter tail. It 

 avoids the habitations of men, preferring the wild coppices 

 and silvan shades ; not living in the forest, however, but 

 on its borders, or in the open wastes that spread around it. 

 It resorts to the farmyard in mid-winter only, where, like 

 the sparrow, the bunting, or the finch, it picks up a scanty 

 meal of grain ; but its principal food is insects, larvae, 

 caterpillars, and the small land molluscs. It perches, 

 which the skylark does not; but otherwise it resembles 

 that bird in most of its habits. It feeds on the ground, 



