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shrubs as seriously to interfere with their flight and general

welfare. Happily there are some sheds nearly four feet, and a

structure above seven feet, high, on the roofs of which they pass

a great deal of their time. And the female often used to sit on

two thick perches fully eight feet from the ground, one on either

side of the aviary, and would sometimes spend a good half-hour

flying backwards and forwards from one to the other. Our Sky

Lark, be it remembered, in some parts of the country freely

perches on stone walls.


It was not to be expected that such exceptionally timid

and nervous birds, and withal so weak, should nest the first

summer. A certain amount of flirting went on : during some

months the male was perpetualty trotting about, warbling almost

unceasingly, with his tail cocked up in the air. This spring,

however, I considered they might nest; the reserved aviary had

a number of little finches in it, but every bird was removed that

was likely to interfere with them. Unfortunately, I was obliged

to make one exception, for the Pied Rock-Thrushes, male and

female, became so quarrelsome as they threw off their winter

clothes and donned their nuptial robes (a little point in natural

history which is ignored by theorists) that I had to locate the most

forward pair in the Larks’ aviary. They did not interfere much

with the female ; but almost every time the female Rock-Thrush

came off her nest she went for the male Lark. In the open, the

Lark would have made off, but in the aviary he hadn’t a chance ;

for minutes at a time she would viciously pursue him ; and the

poor creature so knocked himself about against the roof of the

aviary that my hopes of his breeding fell very low indeed.

Happily she became more quiet or otherwise occupied when her

3^oung were hatched ; and I cleared them out of the avia^ a few

hours before the young Larks were supposed to be due to appear.


Very early in the spring I had noticed that the female

Lark had commenced to work out a hollow, at the extreme end

of the aviar3% under the stem of a Virginia creeper. I may here

mention that, when at work, the female (for the lazy male,

imitating his masters, was above work ; but he was not above

seeing his wife work) seemed never to use her feet ; she

invariably worked with her bill, moving it masterfully, right and.

left; but when taking a dust bath she would scratch like a

common fowl. On May 21st, the female commenced carrying

mouthfuls of the shortest obtainable ha3^ in the direction of the

nest; on the 25th she was still busy, and still carried a little on

the 26th. party in the winter I had thickly covered the roof of

the “structure” alread3' referred to with hay. so that the Larks



