BIRDS IN A VILLAGE iii 



which has surely lasted long enough. It goes without 

 saying that this bird's music is eminently pleasing 

 to most persons, that even as the sunshine is sweet 

 and pleasant to behold, its silvery aerial sounds 

 rained down so abundantly from heaven are delight- 

 ful and exhilarating to all of us, or, at all events, 

 to so large a majority that the minority are not 

 entitled to consideration. One person in five thou- 

 sand, or perhaps in ten thousand, might be found to 

 say that the lark singing in blue heaven affords him 

 no pleasure. This being so, and ours being a de- 

 mocratic country in which the will or desire of the 

 many is or may be made the law of the land, it is 

 surely only right and reasonable that lovers of lark's 

 flesh should be prevented from gratifying their 

 taste at the cost of the destruction of so loved a 

 bird ; that they should be made to content themselves 

 with woodcock, and snipe on toast, and golden 

 plover, and grouse and blackcock, and any other 

 bird of delicate flavour which does not, living, 

 appeal so strongly to the aesthetic feelings in us, 

 and is not so universal a favourite. 



This, too, will doubtless come in time. Speaking 

 for myself, and going back to the former subject, 

 little as I like to see men feeding on larks, rather 

 would I see larks killed and eaten than thrust into 

 cages. For in captivity they do not " sweeten " 

 my life, as the Maidenhead guide-book writer would 



