tke Sowers. Instances of flowers of this struc- 
ture are seen in those of peas and beans, in 
which the top leaf or petal is the vexillum, 
the bottom the carina, and the side ones the 
als*. Ahe is also applied to those extremely slen- 
der and membranaceous parts of some seeds 
which appear as wings placed on them ; and 
likewise signifies those membranaceous expan- 
sions running along the stems of some plants, 
which are therefore called (dated stalks. 
ALAMODE, in commerce, a thin glossy 
black silk, chiefly used for women’s hoods and 
men’s mourning scarfs, commonly called 
mode. 
ALARAF, in the Mahometan theology, 
tire partition wall that separates heaven from 
hell. 
ALARES, in antiquity, are supposed by 
some authors to have been a kind of militia or 
soldiers among the Romans; so called from 
ala, a wing, because of their lightness and 
swiftness in the combat. Others make them 
a people of Pannonia ; but others, with more 
probability, take atares for an adjective, or 
epithet, and apply it to the Roman cavalry, 
because placed in two wings, or alee, of the 
army ; for which reason a body of horse was 
called ala. 
ALASCANI, in church history, a sect of 
antilutherans, whose distinguishing tenet, be- 
sides their denying baptism, is said to have 
been this, that the words, This is my body , in 
the institution of the eucharist, are not to be 
understood of the bread, but of the whole 
action or celebration of the supper. 
' ALAUDA, Lak k, in ornithology, a genus 
of birds of the order of passeres; the charac- 
ters of which are, that the beak is cylindrical, 
subulate, and straight, bending towards the 
point; the mandibles are of equal size and 
opening downwards at their base ; the tongue 
is bifid ; and the hinder claw is straighter and 
longer than tire toe. 
1. A. arvensis, the skylark, the specific cha- 
racters of which are, that the two outermost 
quills of its tail are white lengthwise exter- 
nally, and the intermediate ones are ferrugi- 
nous ondhe inside; the length is about seven 
inches. The males of this species are somewhat 
browner than the females ; they have a black 
collar, and more white on the tail; their size is 
larger, and their aspect bolder; and they ex- 
clusively possess the faculty of singing. When 
t he female is impregnated, she forms her nest 
between two clods of earth, and lines it with 
herbs and dry roots, being no less attentive to 
the concealment than to the structure of it. 
It sometimes builds its nest among corn and 
ill high grass. Each female lays four or live 
eggs, which are greyish, with brown spots; 
and the period of her incubation is about 15 
days. The young may be taken out of the 
nest when they are a fortnight old, and they 
are so hardy that they may be easily brought 
up. Some have said that she hatches three 
times in the year; but this must depend on 
the temperature of the climate. The parent 
is very tender of her young; and though she 
does not always cover them with her wings, 
she directs their motions, supplies their wants, 
and guards them from danger. The common 
food of the young sky-larks is worms, cater- 
pillars, ant’s-eggs, and even grasshoppers; and 
in maturity, they live chiefly on seeds, herb- 
age, and all vegetable substances. 'Those 
birds, it is said, that are destined for singing, 
Should be caught in October or November; 
Vol. I. 
ALAUDA. 
| and the males should, as much as possible, be 
selected: and when they are untraetable they 
should he pinioned, lest they injure themselves 
by their violence against the roof of the cage. 
As they cannot cling by the toes, it is need- 
less to place bars across their cage ; but they 
should have clean sand at the bottom of the 
cage, that they may welter in it, and be re- 
lieved from the vermin which torment them. 
The lark is found in all the inhabited parts 
of both continents, as far as the Cape of Good 
Hope; though Yillault says that it is not 
found on the Gold coast ; nor, according to 
Averroes, in Andalusia. 
This bird, and the wood-lark, are the only 
birds which sing whilst they lly. The higher 
it soars, the more it strains its voice, and 
lowers it till it quite dies away in descending. 
When it ascends beyond our sight, its music 
is distinctly heard ; audits song, which is full 
of swells and falls, and thus delightful for its 
variety, commences before the earliest dawn. 
In a state of freedom, the lark begins its 
song early in the spring, which is its season ot 
pairing, and continues to warble during the 
whole of the summer. 
2. A. pratensis, the titlark, of which the spe- 
cific characters are, that above it is greenish 
brown ; its two outermost tail-quills are exter- 
nally white, and it has a white line on its eye- 
brows. This bird is of an elegant slender shape, 
five inches and a half long ; its bill is black; the 
back and head of a greenish brown, spotted 
with black; the throat and lower part of the 
belly are white; the breast yellow, marked 
with oblong spots of black; the tail is dusky: 
the exterior feather is varied by a bar of 
white, which runs across the end and takes in 
the whole outmost web; the claw on the hind 
toe is very long, and the feet yellowish. The 
male has in general more yellow than the 
female, on the throat, breast, legs, and feet. 
'The tit-lark is found generally in meadows and 
low marshy grounds ; and, like other larks, it 
makes its nest among the grass, and lays live 
or six eggs, which are roundish, of a dusky red 
colour, with many small spots. While the 
female hatches, the male sits on a neighbouring 
tree, and rises at times, singing and clapping 
his wings. It feeds chiefly on tire worms and 
insects which it finds in new-ploughed lands ; 
and it will live for a long time on no other 
food than small seeds. Like the wood-lark, it 
sits on trees ; but it is flushed at the least 
noise, and shoots with a rapid flight: it has a 
very remarkable fine note, singing in all situ- 
ations; on trees, on the ground, while it is 
sporting in the air, and particularly in its de- 
scent. 
3. A. arborea, the wood-lark of English wri- 
ters, is specifically characterised by a white 
annular belt, encircling its head. This bird is 
smaller than the sky-lark, and of a shorter 
thicker form ; the colours of the plumage are 
paler ; the first feather of the wing is shorter, 
than the second ; the hind claw is very long and 
somewhat bent; it perches on trees ; it haunts 
the uncultivated tracts near copses, without 
penetrating the woods, whence its name ; its 
song resembles more the warble of the night- 
ingale, or the whistling of the blackbird, than 
that of the sky-lark ; its note being less sono- 
rous and less varied, though not less sweet ; 
and it is heard not only in the day but in the 
night, botii when it flies and when it sits on a 
bough. 
'1 his bird builds on the ground, and forms 
41 
its nest on the outside with moss, and on the 
inside with dried bents, lined with a few hairs, 
and conceals it with a turf; and the situation 
it selects is ground where the grass is rank, or 
become brown. It lays four or five eggs, 
which are dusky and blotched with deep 
brown; its fecundity is inferior to that of the 
sky-lark, and its numbers are not so great: it 
breeds earlier, since its young are sometimes 
flown in the middle of March, and therefore 
they pair in February, at which time, and not 
before, they part with their last year’s brood ; 
whereas the common lark does not hatch be- 
fore the month of May. This is a very tender 
and delicate bird ; so that it' is impossible to 
rear the young taken out of the nest ; but this 
i#the case only in England and such co'd cli- 
mates, for in Italy they are removed from the 
nest, and reared at first like the nightingale, 
and afterwards fed upon panic and millet. The 
wood-lark feeds on beetles, caterpillars, and 
seeds: its tongue is forked; its stomach mus- 
cular and fleshy ; and it has no craw, but a 
moderate dilatation of the lower part of the 
(Esophagus; and its caeca are very small. It 
lives ten or twelve years. The males are dis- 
tinguished from the females by their larger 
size; the crown of the head is also of a darker 
colour, and the hind nail longer; its breast is 
more spotted, and its great wing-quills edged 
, with olive, which in the female is grew ‘1 lie 
1 wood-lark mounts high, warbling its notes, and 
hovering in the air; it flies in flocks during 
the winter colds; it is found in Sweden and 
Italy, and is probably dispersed through the 
intervening countries, and consequently over 
the greatest part of Europe. It is also "found 
in Siberia, as far as Kamtschatka, and in the 
island of Madeira. 
4. A. campestris, the meadow-lark, is rather 
larger than the tit-lark, being six inches and a 
halt in length. Its specific characters are, that 
its tail-quills are brown ; the lower half, except 
two intermediate quills, white ; the throat ami 
breast yellow. According to Wiliughby, the 
meadow-lark differs from the other larks by the 
blackness of its bii! and feet; he adds, that its 
bill is slender, straight, and pointed, and the 
corners of its mouth edged with yellow; that 
it has not, like the wood-lark, the first quills of 
the wings shorter than the succeeding; and 
that in the male the wings are rather darker 
than in the female. 'Though the males are 
hardly to be distinguished from, the females by 
their external appearance, yet if another male 
is presented, shut up in a cage, they will in- 
stantly attack it as an enemy or a rival. This 
bird has a slenderer body than the sky-lark, 
and is distinguished from 'it by the shake of its 
tail, like that of the wagtail and tit-lark. It 
inhabits heaths and uncultivated tracts, and 
frequently the oat-stubble, after the corn is 
reaped, where birds of this species . gather to- 
gether in numerous flocks. In spring, the 
male perches to discover or woo his mate, and 
sometimes he mounts into the air, singing with 
all his might, and then descends quickly to pair 
on the ground. When a person approaches 
the nest, the. female betrays her fears by her 
cries; whereas, other larks are' silent un- 
moved, when danger is apprehended. They 
make their nest close to the ground, some- 
times in furze-bushes, and form it of moss, 
lined with straw and horse-hair. 
5. A. trivialis, is distinguished by brown 
tail-quills, the outermost half white, the second 
white at its wedge-like tip, with a double 
