SKY LARK. 4.49 
various insects, and worms. ‘They pair in April, and gene- 
rally produce two broods in the summer. The nest is 
placed on the ground, frequently sheltered by a tuft of 
herbage, or a clod of earth. Grahame, in his poem on 
the Birds of Scotland, has well contrasted the lowly si- 
tuation of the nest with the lofty flight of the builder : 
“ Thou, simple bird, dwellest in a home 
The humblest ; yet thy morning song ascends 
Nearest to Heayen.” 
The materials of which the nest is formed, as well as the 
locality frequently selected for it, are in the same poem 
thus truly described : 
“The daisied Lea he loves, where tufts of grass 
Luxuriant crown the ridge; there, with his mate, 
He founds their lowly house, of withered bents, 
And coarsest spear-grass; next, the inner work 
With finer, and still finer fibres lays, 
Rounding it curious with his speckled breast.” 
The eggs are four or five in number, of a greyish white 
ground tinged with green, and mottled nearly all over with 
darker grey and ash brown; the length eleven lines, by 
eight lines and a half in breadth: the young are hatched 
in about fifteen days. Mr. Selby says, that the young of 
the first brood are fledged by the end of June, and the 
second brood are able to fly in August. The strong at- 
tachment of the parent Lark to its eggs and young has 
long been known, and a remarkable instance is thus de- 
scribed by Mr. Blyth in the second volume of The Na- 
turalist. “‘ The other day some mowers actually shaved 
off the upper part of the nest of a Sky Lark without in- 
jwing the female, which was sitting on her young; still 
she did not fly away, and the mowers levelled the grass 
all round her without her taking further notice of their 
proceedings. A young friend of mine, son of the owner 
VOL. f. GG 
