Skylark. 



149 



In the winter the larks 



it is very noticeable that this inspiring singer is the bird 

 of solitude ; and he is notably unsocial all through the 

 spring and summer, 

 each one keeping to ,j y\M! 

 his own nest and 

 ground, a thing in 

 which the young ones 

 even follow the par- 

 ental example, giving 

 the old ones much 

 trouble to find and 

 feed the little things 

 in places apart from 

 each other. Yet they do it. 

 go in coveys, which makes it more easy for the bird- 

 catchers to find them in many cases. 



Corncrakes now fill the pauses with their harsh mono- 

 tonous cry — crek, crek, crek, or something like it ; 

 butterflies hover over 

 the blooming wheat, 

 and now and then 

 alight, and the wood- 

 doves range round 

 the field at certain 

 times. The rabbits 

 dart about, and go 

 with their hirpling 

 kind of walk down the 

 intervals between the 

 "stetches," and now 

 and then a mole is seen. The rooks come and make 

 observations in the pauses of their work in the green- 

 cropped fields beyond. A most curious and forecasting 

 bird is the rook ; little indeed escapes his attention. 



CORNCRAKE. 



