THE WOOD-LARK. 11 



As the seasons are more in extremes on the continent of 

 Europe than with us, sky-larks flock in even greater num- 

 bers, especially on the light soil that extends from Hamburgh 

 eastward, along the southern shore of the Baltic, towards 

 the central marshes of Russia. 



Though, from the small differences of sexual and seasonal 

 plumage, and plumage of age, that are found among larks, 

 it is natural to suppose that their colour will not run so 

 often into variety in the individual bird, as that of those 

 species in which the usual changes and differences are more 

 conspicuous ; yet still, from the vast number of the indivi- 

 duals, it is reasonable to suppose that the variedly-coloured 

 ones will be more numerous, on the whole, than among rarer 

 birds. Brown, reddish, yellowish white, and dusky, are the 

 tints ; and though any one of these may give the prevailing 

 colour to an individual, that is not a sufficient ground for 

 forming it into a separate variety, far less a separate species. 

 Larks of a colour dusky almost to blackness, and also of a 

 yellowish tint, have been reared from the nest ; and there is 

 no reason why any other colour that appears in the natural 

 plumage should not predominate. 



THE WOOD-LARK (Alauda arborea). 



A figure of the wood-lark, one-third of the lineal dimen- 

 sions, is given on the plate at p. 386, vol. i. With the 

 exception of the feathers on the head not being so much 

 produced, the general tint being a lighter and yellower brown, 

 the breast a little more inclining to red in the middle, and 

 the chin more clear of spots, the wood-lark bears a consider- 

 able resemblance to the sky-lark. It is, however, an inch 

 shorter ; the wings are rather shorter in proportion, and the 

 bill, and indeed the whole air of the bird, have a slight, but 

 very slight, resemblance to the warblers. 



The wood-lark, though pretty generally distributed over 



