time
came for mowing the grass, the little ones were not large enough to
leave the nest. The mother bird laid herself flat on the ground, with
her wings spread out. The father bird took one of the little ones from
the nest and placed it on the mother's back. She flew away, took the
baby bird to a safe place, and came back for another.

This time the father took his turn. In this way they carried the
little ones to a safe place before the mowers came.

Like our Meadow Lark, the Skylark builds her nest on the ground--never
in bushes or trees. Usually it is built in a hole below the surface of
the ground. It is for this reason that it is hard to find.

Then, too, the color of the nest is much like that of the ground.

Four or five eggs are usually laid, and in two weeks the little larks
crack the shells, and come into the world crying for worms and bugs.

THE SKYLARK.

The English Skylark has been more celebrated in poetry than any
other song-bird. Shelley's famous poem is too long to quote and too
symmetrical to present in fragmentary form. It is almost as musical as
the sweet singer itself.

"By the first streak of dawn," says one familiar with the Skylark, "he
bounds from the dripping herbage, and on fluttering wings mounts the
air for a few feet ere giving forth his cheery notes. Then upward,
apparently without effort he sails, sometimes drifting far away as he
ascends, borne as it were by the ascending vapors, so easily he mounts
the air. His notes are so pure and sweet, and yet so loud and varied
withal, that when they first disturb the air of early morning all the
other little feathered tenants of the fields and hedgerows seem
irresistibly compelled to join him in filling the air with melody.
Upwards, ever upwards, he mounts, until like a speck in the highest
ether he appears motionless; yet still his notes are heard, lovely
in their faintness, now gradually growing louder and louder as he
descends, until within a few yards of the earth they cease, and he
drops like a fragment hurled from above into the herbage, or flits
about it for a short distance ere alighting." The Lark sings just as
richly on the ground as when on quivering wing. When in song he is
said to be a good guide to the weather, for whenever we see him rise
into the air, despite the gloomy looks of an overcast sky, fine
weather is invariably at hand.

The nest is most frequently in the grass fields, sometimes amongst
the young corn,