LARKS 205 



sparrow helps us very much, and partly pays, as it were, for the 

 damage which it causes at other times of the year. 



There is another way in which it is useful. There is no doubt 

 that it is very fond of grain, and will steal it, whenever it can, from 

 our corn-fields, our stacks, and our poultry-yards. But when it 

 cannot get grain, it eats the seeds of wild plants instead; and 

 among these are some of the weeds which give the farmer so much 

 trouble when they get into his fields. 



In two ways at least, then, the sparrow is useful to us, and we 

 must not think of it as being altogether an enemy, even if it does 

 sometimes commit so much mischief 



Although it is quite a small bird, the sparrow is very quarrel- 

 some, and will attack other birds much larger than itself Once a 

 starling was seen hopping about on a small lawn, and every now 

 and then pulling a worm out of its hole. Just behind it, however, 

 came a sparrow ; and as soon as the starling caught a worm, the 

 sparrow snatched it out of its beak, flew away, and swallowed it. 

 The starling was much the bigger bird of the two, but it seemed 

 quite afraid to fight with the sparrow, and did not attempt to 

 pursue it and take the worms away again. 



The sparrow makes a very untidy nest of straw, grass, and 

 feathers; sometimes in a hole in a tree, sometimes in the branches, 

 sometimes under the eaves of a house, and sometimes even in the 

 nest of another bird. Indeed, there is scarcely any place in which 

 it does not sometimes build. It lays from four to six gray eggs, 

 spotted and speckled with brown, and sometimes brings up as many 

 as three families in a single year. 



LARKS (Family Alaudid^) 



After the Finches comes the delightful sub-family of Buntings — 

 Reed-Bunting, Common Bunting, Yellow Bunting, etc., and then 

 follows the Lark family, which includes over a hundred species. 



THE SKY-LARK 



When crossing the fields on a spring day you have no doubt 

 often noticed a little bird rise from almost under your feet, and. 



