LARK'S NEST. 1 17 



lark. The eggs are seldom more in one brood than 

 four or five ; their colour is greenish white, spotted 

 with olive brown. There is something ingenious in the 

 structure, simple as it is ; and man cannot examine 

 any production of nature without finding something 

 that may be a lesson to him. That birds should form 

 their nests of dry vegetables rather than of green leaves , 

 which would be more easily cut, and more pliable, 

 shows that nature attends to the ultimate purpose, as 

 these dry substances are much worse conductors of 

 heat than moist leaves : nests, too, that are shaded, 

 constructed in the holes of rocks, or in thick tufts of 

 foliage, are always formed of worse conductors than 

 those which are exposed, and have the advantage of 

 the sun's heat in the absence of the bird. When the 

 nest is exposed, too, and on the ground, there is a 

 drainage to prevent the water from lodging in it. For 

 this purpose, the lark selects her ground with care, avoid- 

 ing clayey places, unless she can find two clods so placed, 

 as that no part of a nest between them would be below 

 the surface. In more friable soils, she scrapes till she 

 has not only formed a little cavity, but loosened the bot- 

 tom of it to some depth. Over this the first layers are 

 placed very loosely, so that, if any rain should get in at 

 the top, it may sink to the bottom, and there be ab- 

 sorbed by the soil. The edges of the nest are also 

 raised a little above the surface, have a slope outwards, 

 and are, as it were, thatched. The position in which 

 the bird sits is a further security ; the head is always 

 turned to the weather ; the feathers of the breast and 

 throat completely prevent the rain from entering the 

 nest at that side, while the wings and tail act as pent- 

 houses in the other parts ; and, if the weather is violent, 



