135 
WOOD LARK... 
PLATE LXXITI. 
Alauda arborea, a : Pennant. Montacu. Berwick. 
Alauda nemorosa, x . GMELIN. 
Alauda cristatella, . : LatHam. 
Tue nest is placed upon the ground, beneath some 
low bush or tuft of grass, or at the foot of a tree; occa- 
sionally under the shelter of a fence or paling, or on 
a bank; one has been known on the trunk of a fallen 
oak, on the topmost bough of which, perhaps, in 
previous years when it still stood in all its pride, the 
bird had warbled forth her strains, and now when 
levelled with the earth, she “could not bid the spot 
adieu,’ but sang a daily requiem over the fallen 
remains. The outside materials are small roots, grass, 
and sometimes moss, and the lining smaller grasses, 
with occasionally a little hair. 
The eggs, which are laid at the end of March or 
beginning of April, and also in July, there seeming to 
be two broods in the year, are four or five in number, 
of a pale reddish white, or yellowish brown ground 
colour, spotted and speckled with dull reddish brown, 
or dark grey, or brownish grey, with sometimes a few 
irregular dusky lines at the larger end. 
The figure of the nest is from a specimen obligingly 
forwarded by W. Bridger, Esq.; and that of the egg 
from one taken in Hampshire, early in the month of 
March, by the Rev. J. Williams. 
