186 



THE SHORE-LARK. 



hatched, it wou ,d not be easy to persuade one's self that the not% ut 

 tered by this lark was in reality the note of a bird. 



During the season of love, the male has great delight in uttering ita 

 song from some bush adjacent to its nest. Its warbling is extrenv-,ly 

 simple, but at the same time is sweet, and by no means inharmonious 

 These birds also sing during their flight. 



They are artful little creatures, generally skulking in the thickest 

 part of the bushes, and sometimes when concealed, singing at the 

 distance of a little more than a yard from any person. Mr. White, 

 speaking of one of them, says, that, in order to find it, he was under 

 .he necessity of desiring a person to go on the other side of a hedge 

 that it haunted. The bird even then ran before them, creeping like 

 a Mouse, for more than a hundred yards, through the bottom of the 

 thorns, yet it could not be compelled to corne into their sight. Yet 

 this bird, early in the morning, and when undisturbed, would sing on 

 the top of a twig, gaping and shivering its wings with great apparent 

 delight. 



The nest of the Grasshopper Lark is formed in some solitary place, 

 and generally concealed under some green turf. The eggs are seldom 

 more than five in number, and these are marked towards the large 

 end with brown. The young-ones are not uiifrequently devoured by 

 snakes. 



Although these birds are able to perch on small twigs, yet their 

 hinder claw, as in most of the other species, is of considerable length 



THE SHORE-LARK. 



This beautiful species, says Nuttall, is common to the north of 



the old and new 



~ - -** continent, but, as 



in some other 

 instances already 

 remarked, the 

 Shore-lark 

 extends its mi- 

 grations much 

 further over 

 America than 

 over Europe and 

 Asia. Our bird 

 was met with in 

 the Arctic re- 

 gions by the late 

 adventurous voy- 

 agers; and Mr. Bullock saw them in the winter around the city of 

 Mexico ; so that in their migrations over this continent they spread 

 themselves across the whole habitable Northern hemisphere to the 

 /wy equator: while in Europe, according to the careful observations 

 of temmmclc, they are unknown to the south of Germany. Pallai 



THX SHORE LARK. 



