Motions of Larks. 3 
greater height, descending so swiftly that by com- 
parison with other birds it looks as if she must be 
dashed to pieces ; but when within a few yards of the 
ground, the wings are outstretched, and she glides 
along some distance before alighting. This latter 
motion makes it difficult to tell where a lark actu- 
ally does alight. So, too, with snipe: they appear to 
‘drop in a corner of the brook, and you feel positive 
that a certain bunch of rushes is the precise place ; 
but before you get there the snipe is up again under 
your feet, ten or fifteen yards closer than you sup- 
posed, having shot along hidden ‘by the banks, just 
above the water, out of sight. 
Sometimes, after soaring to an unusual elevation, 
the lark comes down, as it were, in one or two stages: 
after dropping say fifty feet, the wings are employed, 
and she shoots forward horizontally some way, which 
checks the velocity. Repeating this twice or more, 
she reaches the ground safely. In rising up to sing 
she often traces a sweeping spiral in the air at first, 
going round once or twice; after which, seeming to 
settle on the liné she means to ascend, she goes up 
almost perpendicularly in a series of leaps, as it were 
—pausing a moment to gather impetus, and then 
shooting upwards till a mere speck in the sky. When 
ten or twelve larks are singing at once, all within a 
narrow radius—a thing that may be often witnessed 
from these downs in the spring—the charm of their 
vivacious notes is greater than when one solitary bird 
B2 
