242 BIRDS' NESTS. 



of heaven, and watched the vocal speck in the 

 firmament, wheeling aloft in airy circles, flut- 

 tering with untired wing, and, the symphony 

 ended 



" Sinking like an arrow to his humble home ! 

 The dasied lea he loves, where tufts of .grass 

 Luxuriant crown the ridge ; there, with his mate, 

 He founds his lowly house of wither'd bents 

 And coarsest spear-grass ; next the inner work 

 With finer, and still finer fibres lays, 

 Rounding it curious with his speckled breast." 



Numerous as the nests of these birds must 

 be, and placed where one would imagine 

 them to be easily detected, they are not often 

 found, except by haymakers and other persons 

 actually employed in the fields, owing, per- 

 haps, partly to the thickness of the herbage 

 at the season of incubation, and partly to the 

 closeness with which the female bird sits on 

 her eggs. Mr. Blyth mentions an instance in 

 which "some mowers actually shaved off the 

 upper part of the nest of a skylark, without 

 injuring the female, who was sitting on her 



