Mr. W. E. Tescheitaker,



276


Berlin dealer charged me two marks, fifty, which can repeat any

passage of bird-music which you like to put before him. Should

any real interest ever be kindled in this country for singing-birds

an event, however, about as probable as the advent of the

Millennium) I prophesy that the Crested Lark will come into

its own and that its trade price will no longer be half-a-crown !


In India, however, the Crested Lark is esteemed as a song¬

bird. as I hear from Mr. C. Harrison of Tiverton, a skilled

aviculturist who spent many years in that country. He writes: —

It is kept either in a bamboo cage or in a wood or wire one:

the cages have no sand-trays but a piece of sacking and the dirt

is scraped out with a scraper through the bars. The Larks are

given brick-dust to dust themselves in. the food and water being

inside the cages in the corners, where the pans are kept in position

either by tying or by a piece of bamboo acting as a spring. They

are fed on parched " gram flour mixed with clarified butter, also

on millet, with some grasshoppers for live-food." It seems to

me an interesting and suggestive fact that in two of the oldest

civilizations of the world—the Indian and Chinese Empires —

song-birds should be so highly esteemed, whereas the younger

nations of Western Europe, with the possible exceptions of the

Germans and perhaps of the Italians of the 16th and 17th

centuries, either set no value on them or only value them as table

delicacies.


At one time or another I have possessed quite half-a-dozen

Crested Larks but I never tried to procure a hen until this

>easou when the before-mentioned German dealer sent me a pair

•• a Rechnung wh ck included an item : five marks for

the same. The sex of these two birds was rather a puzzle, for

the smallest one with the boldest markings was apparently the

male, whereas in the case of most species or Larks, or which the

-exes are similarly marked, the female is usually the smaller and

the better marked. They at once made themselves quite at home

in the large aviary and were inseparable. This accords with the

ird-forks, which state that the Carrsterj. is never found in docks

at always in fairs or small family parties.


Ah rut the middle of May the smaller bird which by this time

I had fnl y identified as the male, au exceptioual circumstance.



