THE WOODLARK. 121 



% 



with which it sings over the field when farm-work is 

 going on, and the frequency with which it alights to 

 pick up larvae, crysalids, and worms, as these are dis- 

 closed by the operations of the plough or the harrow, one 

 would almost be tempted to suppose that they actually 

 enjoy the society of man, and labouring in his com- 

 pany; while their early and joyous songs call him 

 up in the morning. The natural history of the lark, 

 taken with all its times and associations, would how- 

 ever embrace the greater part of rustic nature through- 

 out the year ; as for eight months it is in song, and 

 for the rest of the year it is captured and sold for 

 food. Abundant as they are, however, in Hertford 

 and Northampton, and some of the other open cul- 

 tivated counties of England, they are not near so 

 numerous as on some parts of the Continent. The 

 plains of Germany swarm with them; and they are 

 so highly prized as an article of food, that the tax 

 upon them at the city of Leipzig, produces nearly a 

 thousand pounds yearly to the revenue. 



Though this most cheerful of all the feathered 

 songsters shuns alike the wood and the wild, there 

 is a songster attached to each of those situations, 

 which has been called a lark. 



THE WOODLARK, 



(Alauda arbored), has a considerable resemblance to 

 the skylark in its appearance, and in some of its 

 habits; but it is not above two-thirds of the weight, 

 the tail is much shorter, the body rather longer, but 

 more slender, the wings having about the same stretch, 

 and the crest larger and more capable of being erected. 



