For the benefit of those who doubt the event having ever occurred "within the memory of man" and birds, we will refer our readers to the inscription on a certain very old tomb-stone in Aldermary Churchyard, England. If they do not find a single reference to Cock Robin and the lark which acted the part of clerk at the funeral, it will be because they have left their specs at home. Is is not a well-known fact that tombstones tell no falsehoods? Thinking all these things very calmly over, it occurs to us that, after all, any other of the singing birds we have mentioned in this book might be as well fitted to act the part allotted to the lark as that bird himself. The plain, everyday facts are, it was a poet who reported the affair, and he was at his wit's end to find a word to rhyme with "clerk," and a clerk he must have at a funeral of that date. Now the English tongue, wherever it is spoken, is a curious language. It seems ready made to suit any figure, stout or slim, big or little. The poet knew that any person of good sense, accustomed to rhyming, would read the word "clerk" to sound like "dark." Hence the immortal rhyme, "'I,' said the lark, 'If it be not in the dark, And I will be clerk.'" CHAPTER XIII SKYLARK (HORNED LARK) "Under the greenwood-tree, Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat; Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather." In Shakespeare's play, "As You Like It," scene v., Amiens, a close student of nature, is made to sing this song. It probably caused his companion, Jaques, to remember the skylark of his own boyhood, for he besought Amiens to "sing it again." But Amiens argued with his friend that it would make him "melancholy." However, he sang again, and it is supposed that the two lived over the days of their boyhood, when they lay on the grass under the greenwood-tree, just on the edge of a corn-field, and listened to the skylark tuning his merry note in his own sweet throat. Dear to the heart of English boys and other people is the skylark, on account of which, and for the reason that Britishers of any age may like to meet an old friend should they chance to take up this book in their travels, we are giving a chapter to this bird. In the play, Jaques and Amiens sing later together all about their favorite lark (it is presumed): "Who loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats And pleased with what he gets."