254 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



barbarism to kill such a singer to furnish a savoury dish 

 for the table. 



The Lark has an enemy even worse than the bird-catcher 

 with his nets and his horsehair nooses, and that is frost. 

 A prolonged and really severe frost sweeps off these birds 

 by myriads. For crowds of Larks come to our islands from 

 the Continent to escape the clutch of winter — or rather, to 

 escape its worst rigours. One writer gives an example : 

 " In the winter of 1870, during the siege of Paris, the frost 

 extended even to Devonshire, and there the Larks, which 

 had all gone west, were to be seen dead in thousands. 

 They came into the streets of towns, and invaded the 

 gardens, where they ate every scrap of leaf off the winter 

 cabbages, leaving nothing but the fibres of the leaves." 

 If a bird's daily food and drink are spared to him it is 

 wonderful how much cold he can endure ; but shut these 

 oflf, or let them be scanty and hard to find, and he soon 

 flags and dies. Famine and frost are terrible allies, and 

 irresistibly strong to destroy. 



The Lark's playground is the boundless sky — " the blue 

 dome of air." Once mounted up, it matters little, one 

 would think, whether the plains of Germany or the uplands 

 of England lie beneath him. But despite his marvellous 

 powers of soaring, he is no dweller in the air like the 

 swallow tribe : nor does he choose a high tree for his nest. 

 " The Skylark is a thorough ground bird," says Mr. Dixon, 

 "living for the most part upon the ground, rearing its 

 young u]3on the ground, and drawing almost its entire 

 food from it." 



So that it does matter very considerably what kind of 

 country is underneath him when he is pouring out his 

 song, a thousand feet in air. He is careful in his choice 

 of a nesting-place. It must be a region of open spaces — 



