e in the tussock of grass but a tiny cup-like
nest in the ground, lined with dry grass, and covered snugly over by the
lark's little brown wife, who was keeping the little ones warm, while
her husband had been up almost out of sight in the bright sunny air
singing her one of his sweetest songs,--a song so sweet that the birds
had all stayed from their work to listen.

And this is what he sang--the song that made his little mate's black
beady eyes twinkle and shine as she sat in the tussock; for she felt so
proud to think how her mate could warble:--

"Low down, low down, sitting in the tussock brown,
Little mate, the sky is beaming; little mate, earth wears no frown.
Higher, higher; higher, higher; toward the cloudflecks nigher, nigher,
Round and round I circle, singing; higher, higher ever winging;
Over meadow, over streamlet,
Over glistening dew, and beamlet
Flashing from the pearl-hung grasses,
Where the sun in flashes passes;
Over where sweet matey's sitting;
Ever warbling, fluttering, flitting;
Praising, singing--singing, praising;
Higher still my song I'm raising.
Sky-high, sky-high; higher--higher--higher--higher,
Little matey, watch your flier;
Sweet--sweet--sweet--sweet--sweet--sweet--sweet--sweet;
Here the merry breezes meet,
Where I twitter, circling higher,
Watch me flying higher, higher.
Low down, low down, nestling in the tussock brown,
Little mate, I'm coming down."

"Well, that beats the owl hollow," said Mr Specklems to his wife. "I
think I could sing as well myself though, if it was not for this
constant feeling of having a cold. There must have been a draught where
I was hatched, and I've never recovered it. I can't think how he
manages to sing and fly too at the same time: I can't. Why, I should be
out of breath in no time."

"There, don't be a booby," said his wife; "you are not a song-bird at
all. I heard the crow say we were distant relations of his, and no one
would for a moment think that he was a singer."

"Hark at her now!" said Specklems, "not a singer; why, what does she
call that?" And then the vain little bird whistled and sputtered and
cizzled away till he was quite out of breath, when his wife laughed at
him so merrily, but told him that she liked his whistle better than the
finest trill the skylark ever made; and so then Specklems said that
after all he thought the crow might be right, but, at all events, the
Specklems could do s