20 ALAUDID.E. 



hidden situations, and we have seen it in the rut of an 

 unfrequented cart-road, &c. The eggs vary in size from ten 

 lines to an inch in length, and are from seven to eight lines 

 in diameter : they are in the ground colour greenish or 

 greyish-white, mottled all over with ash-grey and brown or 

 olive : these colours vary but little in tint in different speci- 

 mens, but in some the spots are equally distributed over 

 the surface, in others grouped in knots, having the appear- 

 ance of being curdled. The young Larks, when a few weeks 

 old, are pretty, intelligent little creatures ; they resemble 

 their parents generally in their colours, but have each feather 

 of the upper plumage tipped with yellowish- white ; the males 

 may be distinguished by having the most yellow upon the 

 breast. 



Larks, as before observed, are indefatigable in attention to 

 their young, and even when captured with their nestlings 

 have been known to bring them up. We have ourselves 

 met with an instance of this kind ; a female Skylark was 

 taken prisoner with her four young ones when they were 

 tolerably well feathered ; they were placed in a cage toge- 

 ther, and supplied with the food commonly known as Ger- 

 man paste. Hardly were these arrangements completed, 

 than the parent bird commenced feeding the nestlings, while 

 they stood begging around her, shivering their little wings 

 and opening their ready beaks ; and so intent was she upon 

 these maternal cares, that she appeared unconscious of the 

 change in her own situation, as well as of the strange per- 

 sons and things that surrounded her. 



The Skylark is common and well known in most parts 

 of the kingdom. It frequents, in the spring, meadows, com- 

 mons, and extended grassy tracts of various descriptions, also 

 fields of clover and young wheat : in autumn and winter, 

 these birds are seen in vast flocks, at that time augmented 

 by flights from the northern parts of the European continent, 



