THE ROCK nriT. 
87 
reach over the brink is often hazardous in the extreme. 
Scarcely less dangerous is it when the spot chosen is among 
the grassy ledges of a low cliff of merely some hfteen or twenty 
feet in height, so insignificant in appearance as to render the 
climher forgetful that at the foot of such a cliff the water may 
be iar deeper than is sufficient to drown him, or the rocks 
(piite sufhciently hard to break every l)one in his body. 
Occasionally I have found the nest several hundred feet aliove 
the sea-level, at the base of a large stone, well concealed among 
grass and heather ; but I cannot call to mind one single instance 
in which the nest has been so placed that the sitting bird could 
not obtain a view of the oj^en sea. In colour the eggs often 
resemble those of both the meadow pipit and the skylark ; but 
their superior size at once distinguish-es them from the former, 
while from the latter they may be known by their rounder 
form, and, as a rule, hj the absence of the greenish tinge so 
common in the eggs of the skylark, — two points of difference 
already mentioned by Mr Hewitson, but here repeated as con- 
firmed by the examination of many hundreds of specimens. 
IX. ALAUDID^E. 
THE SKYLAEK. 
Alauda arvensis. 
LAVEROCK — LADY HEN {Our Lad.ijs Hen). 
In Scott’s ‘Mhrate,” Magnus Troil, that admirably-drawn 
representative of the fine old Shetland Udaller, is made to tell 
of the laverock which he had once heard in Caithness, thereby 
implying that it was unknown among his native isles ; but the 
error may well be passed over in silence when we take into 
consideration the many astonishing ornithological mistakes 
committed by the inhabitants themselves. It is true that in 
winter the Skylark becomes scarce, sometimes indeed almost 
entirely absent for many weeks ; but during the summer it is 
