THE SKYLAEK. 329 



is quick and powerful, and when passing from place to place is straight or only 

 very slightly undulating. The Skylark is very fond of dusting itself for the 

 purpose of getting rid of troublesome parasites ; it may often be seen on a sandy 

 road, or in a little bare patch in the fields, lying on its side, shaking its wings, 

 and thoroughly dusting its plumage. It always roosts upon the ground, amongst 

 tall herbage, and is seldom or never seen to perch in a tree. 



"Although the Skylark often pairs early in March, nesting duties do not 

 generally commence before the middle of April. In exceptional cases eggs may 

 be found as early as the first week in April. The nest is always built upon the 

 ground, amongst herbage, and is usually well concealed ; generally it is placed 

 amongst the meadow grass or the growing corn, but sometimes it is built in the 

 coarse herbage on commons and weedy pastures, or amongst the wiry heath 

 branches on the moors. It is often built behind a tuft of herbage, and is usually 

 placed in a little depression, often scratched out by the bird. The nest is a simple 

 little structure, made externally of dry, coarse grass and a scrap or two of moss, 

 and it is lined with finer grass, rootlets, and sometimes a few hairs. These 

 materials are very loosely put together, as is usually the case in most nests built 

 on the ground. The eggs of the Skylark are four or five in number, sometimes 

 only three. The ground color varies from dull white to white with just a tinge 

 of ohve, and the markings are olive brown or neutr?J brown, the underlying 

 ones being pale gray. The spots are generally so thickly distributed over the 

 entire surface as to conceal most of the ground color, and on the large end they 

 are often confluent and form an irregular zone. On those eggs where the mark- 

 ings are not so thickly dispersed the zone is much broader and darker. A rare 

 but very beautiful variety of the egg of this bird is white in ground color, 

 thickly mottled and spotted with brownish red, and with numerous underlying 

 markings of gray. The eggs are not subject to any great variation in color, but 

 differ somewhat in shape, some specimens being very round, others pyriform, 

 and many oval; they vary in length from 1 to 0.87 inch, and in breadth from 

 0.72 to 0.63 inch. The Skylark usually rears two broods in the year, the young 

 of the first being generally abroad by the middle of June, and those of the 

 second in August. The female performs most of the duties of incubation, and 

 is a very close sitter, usually allowing herself to be almost trodden upon before 

 quitting the nest. In returning to the nest both birds usually di'op into the 

 herbage some little distance from it, and run through the grass the remainder of 

 the distance. During the whole period of incubation the male bird is inces- 

 santly soaring upward to warble his song, from the first streak of morning tiU 

 dusk."i 



As a rule the eggs of the Skylark are more heavily spotted and conse- 

 quently darker colored than those of our Horned Larks, but they do not differ 

 much in shape. The average measurement of eighteen specimens in the United 

 States National Museum collection is 22.23 by 16.76 millimetres, or about 0.88 



I History of British Birds, Vol. II, 1884, pp. 267-270. 



