SOME BIRDS OF THE WINTER. 315 



soars high up in the air to warble his simple 

 song, rising and falling like the Skylark, singing 

 as he goes. The nest is made in very similar 

 situations to those selected by our own Larks 

 hollows in the ground and is composed of dry 

 grass, scraps of moss, and frequently lined with 

 hair. The four or five eggs are remarkably like 

 those of the Skylark in colour, and are about the 

 same size. The general similarity of the eggs of 

 all the Larks is a noteworthy fact ; and all of 

 them are of those olive tints which are least 

 conspicuous in the situations where the nests are 

 made. This family likeness also extends, in a 

 great measure, to the young birds, which are 

 more or less uniformly spotted in their first or 

 nestling plumage. Young Shore Larks are very 

 prettily spotted with yellow, something like the 

 downy stage of the Golden Plover, which serves 

 admirably to conceal them from danger on the 

 many-coloured tundra where their infancy is 

 passed. 



Our third little bird of winter is the Pine 

 Grosbeak. Rare and irregular are the visits of 

 this Arctic species ; yet it is possible that it may 

 occur here more frequently and be overlooked. 

 Like the preceding species, the Pine Grosbeak is 

 a circumpolar bird, but instead of living on the 

 tundras beyond forest growth, its home is in the 

 pine woods near the Arctic circle. Of all the 

 gipsy migrants this bird appears to wander least 

 from its native woods ; this is probably because 



