Its Solicitude for its Young. 45 



with which he ascends, and the length of time he can support 

 himself in the air : often for an hour at a time. Still more ex- 

 traordinary is the wonderful power and reach of his voice, for 

 while, probably, the seven hundred or a thousand voices of the 

 grand chorus of an oratorio would fail to fill the vast spaces of 

 the atmosphere, it can be done by this glorious little songster, 

 which, mounting upwards, makes itself heard, without effort, 

 when it can be seen no longer. 



The attachment of the parents to their young is very great, 

 and has been seen to exhibit itself in a remarkable manner. 



The nest being placed on the open-ground — often pasture, 

 or in a field of mowing grass — it is very liable to be disturbed ; 

 many, therefore, are the instances of the bird's tender solicitude 

 either for the young or for its eggs, one of which I will give 

 from Mr. Jesse. "In case of alarm," he says, "either by 

 cattle grazing near the nest, or by the approach of the mower, 

 the parent birds remove their eggs, by means of their long 

 claws, to a place of greater security, and this I have observed 

 to be affected in a very short space of time." He says that 

 when one of his mowers first told him of this fact he could 

 scarcely believe it, but that he afterwards saw it himself, and 

 that he regarded it only as another proof of the affection which 

 these birds show their offspring. Instances are also on record 

 of larks removing their young by carrying them on their backs; 

 in one case the young were thus removed from a place of 

 danger into a field of standing corn. But however successful the 

 poor birds may be in removing their eggs, they are not always so 

 with regard to their young, as Mr. Yarrell relates. An instance 

 came under his notice, in which the little fledgling proved too 



