10 GRAMIXI VOILE. 



Notwithstanding the casualties to which the eggs and 

 young of the sky-lark are, owing to their situation, sub- 

 jected, both from enemies and from inclement seasons, the 

 birds are exceedingly numerous, and in the autumn they 

 collect in more numerous flocks than almost any other 

 British species of land birds. The lighter soils, that receive 

 =a good deal of moisture without retaining much of it, and 

 where, consequently, earth-worms are very numerous, are 

 their favourite places of resort. In the midland counties 

 of England, where they flock more than in perhaps any 

 other part of Britain, they do not come much upon the 

 retentive clays, or upon the hard impenetrable gravel, but 

 remain more on the open fields near the chalk. At these 

 tunes, as well as at others, they both feed and nestle upon 

 the ground, and they are captured in vast numbers as an 

 article of food ; but as such they are costly, the price in 

 London being about four shillings a pound, which, " sinking 

 the offal," as the market phrase is, may be about the average 

 weight of a dozen. The vast multitude of larks must be of 

 great service to the places which they frequent in the winter, 

 Iby clearing them of the germs of weeds, which hardly any 

 :art of man can keep under, and which, but for the labours 

 of the birds, would increase with cultivation, and greatly 

 -diminish the value of the crops. But though the larks are 

 thus useful, and though people should, and in general do, 

 love them for their songs, their liveliness, and their totally 

 harmless character during the summer, their power of mul- 

 tiplication is so great, that there is no need for desisting 

 from the annual capture, so long as epicures choose to pay 

 three-pence an ounce for a mess of larks. Indeed, it is 

 doubtful whether they are thinned enough by artificial means, 

 as when heavy falls of snow occur in their favourite resorts, 

 many of them perish ; and thus, as the question is one 

 between feeding the epicure and the crow, it is easily settled. 



