84 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
Family: Alaudidae 
To this family belong those fine singers, the skylark, wood¬ 
lark, and crested lark, three permanent residents in Great 
Britain, and the shore-lark, a winter visitor. New Zealand 
has no Maori representative, but the skylark has long been 
acclimatized, and breeds and sings on hill and plain through- 
ot only on plains and lower hills, but high 
up in the mountainous Alps, among the sheltering tussock, 
gemmed with tiny long-stalked daisies and white Maori violets', 
there it nests and rears its young. I have lain on steep tussock- 
clad mountain heights within view of Mount Cook, listening 
to song as voluble and sweet as ever heard by Wordsworth or 
by Shelley. Nothing but the great Tasman River in its water- 
veined shingly bed below me, snowy and ice-sheeted mountain 
peaks around me; not a human habitation visible, but the blue 
air above me vocal with throbbing song. “No bird sings with 
more method/ 7 says Mr. Main (BC, p. 310), “there is an over- 
tin e performed, vivace crescendo, while the singer ascends; 
when at the full height, the song becomes moderato, and dis¬ 
tinctly divided into short passages, each repeated three or four 
times over, like a fantasia, in the same key and tune. If there be 
any vind, he rises perpendicularly by bounds, and afterwards 
poises himself with breast opposed to it. If calm, he ascends in 
spiral circles; in horizontal circles during the principal part of 
his song, and zigzagly downwards during the performance of 
the finale. Sometimes, after descending about half way, he 
ceases to sing, and drops with the velocity of an arrow to the 
ground, those acquainted with the song of the skylark, can 
tell, without looking at them, whether the birds be ascending or 
stationary in the air, or on their descent; so different is the style 
of the song in each case. In the first, there is an expression of 
aident impatience; in the second, an andante composure, in 
