And the eggs of the skylark! Were they not speckled and streaked by passing night winds in the shape of fairies with garden gourds filled with the ink juice of the deadly night-shade berries? Were the skylark's eggs white they would be "moon-struck," and the hatchlings would sing the song of the night-owl. In spite of the speckled eggs and the usual grassy cover of the nest, these are too often the successful object of the prowling boy. Though it must be confessed that in this, as in the case of the robbery of other birds, it is not always the original finder of the nest who is guilty of theft. Shakespeare was aware of this fact, for in "Much Ado About Nothing" he makes Benedick speak of "the flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and _he_ steals it." The mistake was in "showing it his companion." Though, should the companion happen to be a girl, he need have no fear. The nest will be undisturbed next time he visits the spot. For eight months of the English year does the skylark sing, prodding the lazy, comforting the sorrowful, accusing the guilty, making more merry the glad. On account of its ever-circling upward flight, the bird is believed to hold converse with heaven. In captivity it is supposed to be "longing for the sky" when it flings itself against the roof of its cage. To protect it against harm in this last, soft cloth is sometimes used for the cover to its home. In winter, when the skylarks cover the sandy plains of Great Britain, they have but a single cry, having laid by their songs with which to "wake the spring"; or it may be with them as in the case of our bobolinks--after a diet of ripe grains they are "too full for utterance." But when spring is actually astir, then are the larks abroad in the sky. Francis Rabelais, as long ago as the fourteenth century, loved the English spring for the sake of the skylark, and the thoughts the bird inspired in him. Having no appetite, apparently, for the bird when he is fattened for eating, the poet longed for larks in the act of singing, as if, could he hold one of them in his hand when it was articulating, he might come by its written song, as the telegrapher reads the scroll as it unwinds. But he wouldn't be content with one bird, oh, no!--if ever the "skies should fall" he made up his mind to "catch larks" by the basketfuls. But the heavens never were known to fall in lark-singing time, and the poet is long since under the sod with the skylarks nesting above him. To be like a singing bird has been the longing of human hearts in all ages; as if we realize that there is medicine in song as in nothing else--medicine to the singer. And so there is. No higher compliment could be paid by a poet to the memory of his friend than the following, dated in the seventeenth century. There is a happy lesson of work, and good nature, and lightness of heart in a trying occupation too good to lose.