6 



and air of the birds, renders their appearance much more 

 attractive than that of some gayer birds. 



And they have other attractions : they inhabit where few 

 other birds inhabit, sing where few other birds sing, and are 

 more songsters of the free air than any others. Our other 

 songsters must, generally speaking, have their coverts, the 

 grove, the thicket, or the brake ; and, in so far as they are 

 concerned, where there is no bush there is no bird, at least no 

 bird worth listening to. But the larks nestle on the hedge- 

 less field, or the bushless upland, and send down their song, 

 while the figure of the songster, and all its motions, are seen 

 against the otherwise tenantless sky. 



THE SKY-LARK (Alauda arvensis). 



The sky-lark, or, as is more accurately expressed by the 

 specific name, the field-lark, (only that name has been mis- 

 applied to the fidld^tpft,) is the most universal of the British 

 songsters. It inhabits near the dwellings of man, rather 

 than in the bleak wastes, because neither the seeds nor the 

 insects which are produced in these, are suited for it ; but it 

 inhabits the peopled districts abundantly, in all their variety 

 of latitude, soil, and climate ; and, though it might have been 

 previously unknown there, when man has turned the furrow 

 on the waste, and replaced the heath, the moss, and the rush, 

 by a more kindly vegetation, the lark is sure to come with 

 its song of gratitude, to reveillie him to the field betimes, and 

 cheer his labours the live-long day. 



Larks, from their vast numbers, flock much and fly far in 

 the winter, and flock more to the uplands in the middle of 

 England, where much rain usually falls in the summer, than 

 to the drier and warmer places near the shores ; but so true 

 are they to their time, that, be it in the south, the centre, or 

 the north, the lark is always ready, on the first gleamy day 

 of the year, to mount to its watch-tower in the upper sky, 



