118 SPRING. 



and the rain at a small angle with the horizon, the 

 fore part of the bird, upon which the plumage is 

 thickest, receives the whole of it. 



The propensity which many animals have to present 

 a point or angle to the weather, when their body affords 

 one, is very remarkable ; and it is not less remarkable 

 that they should give it up when they are feeble and 

 sickly. Every one who has noticed the habits of ani- 

 mals that winter in the moors, where there is nothing 

 artificial to influence their habits, must have observed 

 how invariably they point a horn, or the division 

 of the hair in those that are without horns, to the 

 weather. Black cattle and sheep, when healthy, may 

 be seen in this manner upon the most exposed places, 

 with the snow driving around them, having their muzzles 

 so placed as that the line of their breathing is at right 

 angles to the motion of the air; and when they turn 

 their backs to the blast, or " cower" in the lee of the 

 hill, it is always a sign that they are sickly. In qua- 

 drupeds this facing of the storm is more remarkable in 

 snow than in rain ; but in birds, it holds in all wea- 

 thers, although in snow they always seek shelter. When 

 a violent whirlwind passes over the nest of a lark, it 

 occasions the bird a great deal of annoyance, and in- 

 stances have been mentioned where their wings have 

 been crippled in their attempts to resist its fury. 



It would be superfluous to describe minutely the ap- 

 pearance of a bird so common and so well known as 

 the lark. Its length is about seven inches, and the 

 stretch of the wings about thirteen. Its general colour 

 is brown, mottled with darker brown, and edged in 

 some places with brownish yellow, which, however, is 

 more marked in the nest feathers than after the bird 



