12 
SKY YAT?TT. 
unusually severe weather, when they move southwards m 
numerous bodies. In some seasons they continue together 
until a comparatively late period. As many as sixty have 
been seen in a flock on the 24th. of March: this was the 
case in the year 1838. 
It would appear that many visit us at that season from 
the continent, and in the south of England they are, at such 
times, seen to move in a westerly direction. They also cross 
from Scotland to Ireland. 
Larks are thoroughly terrestrial in their habits; it is but 
rarely that they alight on a tree, even a low bush, a wall, 
or a hedge; though I have several times seen them do so. 
They pass the day, except when soaring, and roost at night, 
upon the ground. They are sprightly in all their motions, 
and if anything like danger be observed or suspected, they 
may be seen frequently stopping to look round, raising them¬ 
selves up, and elevating the feathers of the head as a crest; 
or else crouching down, and hiding themselves as much as 
they can, which the assimilation of their colour to that of 
the places they frequent, renders easy: ordinarily, on the 
ground, they move rather quickly about in a running manner, 
now quicker, and now more slow: they often lie very close 
till you almost walk up to them. They may be frequently 
seen dusting themselves in the roads, and at other times they 
seem to be fond of settling themselves in such places. This 
very day, on which I have written the foregoing, the 3rd. 
of March, I disturbed a pair, which rose up from the middle 
of the road on which I was walking; and on coming back 
an hour or two afterwards, I found that they had returned, 
and they rose again from the same place: there was not a 
particle of the ‘March dust,’ ‘a peck’ of which is said to be 
‘worth a king’s ransom;’ but the traces of frost and snow 
were still remaining. 
These birds, like so many others, shew a great attachment 
to their young. In ‘The Naturalist,’ old series, Mr. Edward 
Blyth mentions that a mower having accidentally cut off with 
a scythe the upper part of a nest, without injuring the sitting 
bird, she did not fly away; and it was discovered about an 
hour afterwards that she had, in the interval, constructed a 
dome of dry grass over the nest. Instances are on record in 
which they have removed their eggs as a precautionary means 
of preservation; and Mr. Jesse records, in his ‘Gleanings in 
Natural History,’ that a clergyman’s attention being drawn, 
