112 SPRING. 



Caithness and Orkney, it begins to sing by the middle 

 of February, or even by the beginning of that month if 

 the weather be warm ; and as the birds are numerous, 

 generally have two broods in the year, and often a very 

 late one in the event of any casualty happening to the 

 more early ones, it is seldom that they are wholly si- 

 lent before September. As they always sing on the 

 wing too, and elevate their song with their position, 

 their music is heard farther than that of louder birds. 



The time when the lark is first in song, and the general 

 appearance and habits of the bird, render it a favourite ; 

 and even the boys, in their nesting excursions, hold the 

 humble couch of the lark in a sort of veneration. In 

 regions warmer than England, where vegetation is apt 

 to suffer from locusts, the lark is very useful, as it 

 feeds its young with their eggs ; and as snails and 

 worms are the food of the young birds in all countries, 

 and the principal food of the parents in the breeding 

 season, it is a most useful bird every where. 



Those who have amused themselves in making ima- 

 ginary scales of the notes of birds, have hardly done 

 justice to the lark, in giving even the nightingale the 

 preference to it. The matter is, of course, one of mere 

 taste, in which no two persons can be of exactly the 

 same opinion ; and the different times at which the birds 

 are heard make them not easily compared. The night- 

 ingale is also a local and temporary bird, and thus it is 

 something of which the inhabitants of those places to 

 which it is confined can boast as being exclusively 

 theirs. The nightingale, too, sings against silence, and 

 the lark against the hum of all nature, and the advan- 

 tage of that contrast is very great. To a person un- 

 accustomed to it, the serenade of Christmas " waites," 



