come in at more or less regular intervals. I imagined that the larks looked upon it as the highest reach of their art and delivered it with special satisfaction. If they did, I could not blame them; to us it was by all odds the most interesting part of their very limited repertory. The most interesting part, I mean, of that which appealed to the ear; for, as will readily be imagined, the ear’s part was really much the smaller half of the performance. The wonder of it all was not the music by itself (that was hardly better than an oddity, a thing of which one might soon have enough), but the music combined with the manner of its delivery, while the singer was climbing heavenward. For the bird is a true skylark. Like his more famous cousin, he does not disdain the humblest perch--a mere clod of earth answers his purpose; but his glory is to sing at heaven’s gate. His method at such times was a surprise to me. He starts from the ground silently, with no appearance of lyrical excitement, and his flight at first is low, precisely as if he were going only to the next field. Soon, however, he begins to mount, beating the air with quick strokes and then shutting his wings against his sides and forcing himself upward. “Diving upward,” was the word I found myself using. Up he goes,--up, up, up, “higher still, and higher,”--till after a while he breaks into voice. While singing he holds his wings motionless, stiffly outstretched, and his tail widely spread, as if he were doing his utmost to transform himself into a parachute--as no doubt he is. Then, the brief, hurried strain delivered, he beats the air again and makes another shoot heavenward. The whole display consists of an alternation of rests accompanied by song (you can always see the music, though it is often inaudible), and renewed upward pushes. In the course of his flight the bird covers a considerable field, since as a matter of course he cannot ascend vertically. He rises, perhaps, directly at your feet, but before he comes down, which may be in one minute or in ten, he will have gone completely round you in a broad circle; so that, to follow him continuously (sometimes no easy matter, his altitude being so great and the light so dazzling), you will be compelled almost to put your neck out of joint. In our own case, we generally did not see him start, but were made aware of what was going on by hearing the notes overhead.