THE LARK. 



Ill 



season when they make all the country one orchestra ; 

 but the countryman's bird, the bird that is most na- 

 turally associated with the freshness of the vernal day 

 and the labours of the field, is 



THE LARK. 



There are several birds to which the name of lark is 

 given, but the skylark, or field lark (alauda arvensis) is 

 the lark, par excellence, of this country; and wherever 

 man cultivates the soil, from Devon to the Shetland 

 Isles, the lark is there to " beguile his labour with a 

 cheerful song." The lark, indeed, is the signal both 

 for the season and the day. The very first sun of the 

 young year calls up the lark to pour his song from the 

 sky ; and among the rustics the singing of the lark is 

 as definite a point in the twenty-four hours as the rising 

 and setting of the sun. But the lark is not only one 

 of the most generally diffused of our songsters, it is the 

 one that continues the longest. As far north as 



