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EDINBURGH

JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 166. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1847.

THE MYSTERIOUS LEG. THESE modern times, with their steam trips to Richmond, and railway rushings to Windsor-what are they to my younger days, when the Thames was haunted every holiday with six- oared gigs, which skimmed along the water in the midst of the songs and laughter of the rowers? This Age of Fun is only funny in print. In the steamboat, we are as grave and abstracted as if we were counting the revolutions of the wheels; and in the railway carriage, we could not hear ourselves speak, even if we were not too dull and grave to open our lips. Let me recall in imagination a single day of that olden time, when as yet there was not an equivocal hair in my whiskers-and, to say the truth, but few hairs of any colour; let me call up, for the benefit of this wise and solemn generation, a few of those roystering spirits which have long been laid-some of them in the grave, and some smothered and overwhelmed in gowns, coifs, ermined robes, and powdered wigs.

But I must be permitted to tell my story in my own way. Before lugging the reader into the gig, head and shoulders, among half-a-dozen law students -crazy young fellows, without a guinea among the whole set, and with fun and mischief in their heads instead of brains-I must conduct him to the place which is to be the scene of our operations. It is true I only learned afterwards what I am now about to relate; but you are very welcome to the anachronism-all I want to do, is to tell a story about a Leg as plainly and intelligibly as I can.

The leg I allude to at present was a leg of mutton; and how it came to occupy the important place now assigned to it was in this wise. The Boat-House at Putney was kept at the time by an old widower and an old maid, brother and sister, good-tempered old souls enough, but with one standing cause of disagreementvidelicet, the Dinner. Not that their tastes were naturally different, either as regarded the viands or the cookery it was all a question of time. What the brother liked one day the sister liked the next, and vice versa. But 'liked' is an improper word to use, for they never liked anything of this sort. They either loved to passion, or hated to excess. Such a thing Mr Brown held in perfect horror on that day of all the days in the week; and the very thoughts of the other thing proposed by him were enough to make Miss Brown sick.

'Had we not this very dish,' she demanded indignantly on the present occasion, 'last Tuesday was a week?'

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PRICE 14d.

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'Yes, yes, you will; I know you will! What will you?'

'Emigrate! My mind is made up: I will stand this no longer. You have driven me out of house and home; you have banished me from my country: it is all over!' and Mr Brown put up his hands desperately, and settled his hat upon his head, as if he would have gone to New South Wales that moment. 'And all about a leg of pork!' said Miss Brown, cooling gradually down. 'Well, if I was a man! But it's no use talking: my life has been a sacrifice from the beginning; I have been a slave to you and your family all my days; I have been a mother to your motherless children; I have put every penny of my fortune into your till-and now it is to be a leg of mutton after all!' 'With caper-sauce, Molly!' added Mr Brown.

This stroke of policy had a prodigious effect. If Miss Molly Brown had a weakness in this world, it was a weakness for caper-sauce; and the very mention of the condiment inveigled to her lips the moisture which had begun to rise into her eyes. Still, it was only by degrees she allowed herself to be subdued. She had a passion for self-sacrifice, and offered herself up to the leg of mutton, willingly, it is true, but with a full sense of the immensity of the oblation. As the day wore on, however, her feelings insensibly changed. As the pot went on boiling steadily- thanks to her care-she imbibed a sort of maternal affection for its contents. She waxed proud of the leg of mutton, which she at length pronounced to be by far the most beautiful leg she had ever seen in her life. She, in fact, considered it a perfect curiosity, and denied emphatically that there could be such another in all creation. It was now well on to one o'clock. The snowy table-cloth was laid in the bar-room. Mr Brown fidgetted out and in, waiting for the moment to draw the beer; but the moment advanced as slowly as if it had a whole tun on its shoulders, and the landlord more than once looked sternly at the clock, suspecting it had some hand in it. As for Miss Brown, she was in the kitchen, watching the lid of the saucepan heaving gently, and opening its lips every now and then to let out a fragrant sigh and a musical murmur. The caper-sauce was all ready to be poured over the rich and smoking leg the very instant it was dished. It waited on the dresser in a willow

'I will give in to its being roasted instead of boiled!' pattern boat-just as our boat arrived at the pier below said Mr Brown with a sigh.

'Of course, of course-because you know I cannot stand roasting to-day in my state of health. But this is my thanks for slaving for you and your family

the house.

Now, you can know little of the era I am treating of, if you are not aware of the importance we had all attached to the duty of providing stores for the voyage.

Even still, I admit, we can eat, but at that time we devoured. At present we are hungry once, or, it may be, twice a day; but at that time all young fellows, without exception, had a perpetual appetite, which was ready on every possible and impossible occasion. In a pull up the Thames more especially, it was in constant requisition; and I never heard of any one who was mad enough to trust to chance in such an expedition. For our part we had three different meetings before we could determine on what should be the principal feature of the basket; and it was not without considerable opposition from the minority that at length a leg of boiled pork carried the day. But this was a leg of pork! It hit curiously the precise medium between salt and fresh; being just pickled enough to tell you by a relish on the tongue that it was neither one nor other, and make you exclaim with the elegant and sensitive poet

'Oh no, it is something more exquisite still!'

Well, we arrived, as I was saying, below the Boat-House -not to dine, however, but merely to refresh ourselves with a draught of beer on our way. Mooring our gig to the pier, we proceeded to the house, burthened of course with the all-important basket. We were not so green as to leave that behind us, even for the few minutes we meant to be absent. There were too many young lawyers, like ourselves, afloat that day, and we knew well the extent of the appetite of such gentry both for fun and pickled pork! We entered the BoatHouse at the critical minute, just when Miss Brown was thinking to herself, as she peeped into the saucepan, that the time was come; and it was with some illhumour, shared in by the impatient landlord himself, that she found herself called upon to carry in the tankard to the new customers.

Our basket was at the time in the custody of Tom Pope, sometimes called (for we had all aliases) Long Tom, and sometimes Peeping Tom, on account of his unreasonable length, and a strange habit he had of prying and tiptoeing wherever he went. It was surprising how quietly a fellow of his inches was able to set about his investigations; but he really seemed to move from corner to corner like a shadow, and as he was preceded by a nose of uncommon sharpness and lengthiness, he usually smelt out more mischief for us than all the rest of the party together. As Miss Brown came into the room with the tankard, Tom saw at once, by her portentous physiognomy, that she had left some interesting work behind, and we missed him from the room for a minute or two; during which I need hardly say, although quite ignorant of his whereabout or whatabout, we kept the spinster under cross-examination as to the distances of divers places. When at length she turned to leave the room, Tom was standing listlessly, leaning his elbow upon the wall, and spelling a document over the door, indicating that the landlord was a grand archdeacon of some right-worshipful lodge, to the meetings of which that room was to be supposed consecrated and set apart for ever. As she vanished, Tom winked at us in a way which told plainly that we had better be off as quickly as might be consistent with perfect calmness and unconcern; and accordingly we emptied our tankard, lounged down to the boat, and were once more afloat, with our head up the river.

Glad was Miss Molly Brown to see our backs; and while the grand archdeacon drew the dinner beer, with an energy which sent the froth dancing over the sides of the pewter, she released her cherished curiosity from the saucepan, instantaneously deluged it with the capersauce, and bore it in triumph into the bar-room.

Isn't it a beauty?' said Miss Molly, as she settled herself in her chair opposite her brother. The brother

looked critically at the leg, raised it a little with his fork, snuffed the caper-sauce, and then looked at his sister with an expression of doubt almost amounting to disagreement.

Molly, taking fire: and why not, I wonder? Have I Then it is not to be a beauty after all!' cried Miss been a slave to you and your family-have I been a mother to your motherless children-have I put my fortune into your till-have I sacrificed myself to your leg of mutton But Mr Brown's look was at this moment so serious, so abstracted from anything like pettishness-nay, so dignified, I may say, that the She bent towards the virgin could get no farther. mystic dish, and the odour of the caper-sauce had the unwonted effect of diffusing an expression of dismay over her features. Mr Brown bent down upon the object of his scrutiny, cut a little, a very little-only just enough to raise the skin-and then, laying down his knife and fork, said to his sister with dreadful calmness,

Miss Brown, this is a leg of pork!' The worshipful member was right. It was our leg of pork, which Tom had exchanged in the twinkling of an eye for their leg of mutton; but Mr Brown would have gone that moment before any justice of the peace in the kingdom, and made oath that there never had been any other leg in the saucepan-that his audacious sister had determined to gratify at once her taste and her stubbornness at the expense of everything great and met the charge like a tigress. She had been sacrificed sacred in human society. On her part, Miss Brown was none of hers, but his. She had bought it by his all her life, and would be a sacrifice no longer. The leg desire, not her own; she had put it into the saucepan with her own hands, as beautiful a leg of mutton as ever ran; she had watched it ever since as a cat watches a mouse; no human being had entered the kitchen that day but herself; she had skimmed it, and turned it again and again; not two minutes before it was dished she had raised the lid, and saw that it was the true leg of mutton it had been all along; she had poured the capersauce over it when it came out, just as if it had been an infant of a day old; and there it was!

'But I tell you it is a leg of pork!' said Mr Brown bitterly.

Let it be what leg it will,' replied Miss Molly, 'I have told you all I know about it.'

'Who ever heard of caper-sauce with pork?' said the brother. 'I could have forgiven anything but that. That is downright horrible!' Here Miss Brown could hold no longer, but burst into tears, and wrung her hands at such a rate that Mr Brown was almost staggered in his idea of her criminality. After the mysterious dish was put away in the larder, and they had dined on bread and cheese, tranquillity was in some degree restored; but several times throughout the day, as the recollection recurred to Mr Brown, he looked sternly at his sister, and was heard to mutter between his teeth, Pickled pork and caper-sauce!'

While this scene was passing, we were getting up the river at a prodigious rate. Never was there a finer day, never did the sun flash so brightly upon the water, and never did the water break into such radiant smiles in reply. As for us, we were young, hearty fellows at any rate; but on this occasion, the elation of success, the consciousness of having done our work cleverly, gave additional vigour to our arms; and in the midst of songs and wild laughter-that still ring in this cold, dull ear-we pursued our way, making the skiff leap along the water like a race-horse over a plain. We dined early, and found that the mutton fully justified the eulogium of Miss Molly Brown. Being provided, however, with other vivres, we did not completely finish it; and being aware that we should all get as hungry as ever by and by, we put away into our basket the bone, which still boasted some tolerable pickings, and in due time took our way down the river again.

By the time we neared the Boat-House of Putney, we had become so voracious, that Long Tom suggested the propriety of casting lots for a victim; and this brought back feelingly to our recollection our own leg of pork, which we had given away in the morning. Perhaps, thought we, these two curmudgeons may have left enough on the bone to stay our appetite-with the addition of the remains of their mutton-till we get home; and this idea was strengthened by a natural curiosity we felt to know what effect the exchange had produced on the economy of the Boat-House. In short, we landed, and were once more in the lodge of the worshipful brotherhood. Mr Brown was still sulky and suspicious. He walked about as if he had an air-pickled leg of pork continually marshalling him the way that he was going; but the wan and scared look of Miss Molly was still more gratifying to our pride. She was like a heroine entangled in an inextricable network of fate, and seemed to feel that in her own person she was a whole holocaust.

'We want something to eat,' said the spokesman of our party. What have you got in the house?'

'Nothing!' said Miss Brown, hastily interposing, for her brother was about to speak, and a faint tinge of colour rose into her waxen cheek with the feeling of woman's pity which prompted the denial.

Have you nothing at all?' persisted our friend, addressing the masculine. No cold meat?'

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Nothing,' replied the host, but a leg of-hem!' (catching his breath).

A leg of what?' 'Pork.'

'That is capital-I like pork. What say you, Tom?' 'By all means let us have it. Were it mutton, the case would be different; for cold mutton does not agree with me in the afternoon. What say you, gentlemen?' 'Perhaps,' interposed Miss Molly compassionately, 'the gentlemen would prefer cheese? It is a perfect miracle of cheese ours is!' But the notion was scouted indignantly, and 'A pork-a pork!' was the general cry.

The table accordingly was prepared; and you may guess our surprise when at length our own leg of pork made its appearance entire! This was beyond our hopes; and many a fond imagination we gave way to, as we saw the spot where the skin had been cautiously raised, and endeavoured to picture to ourselves the feelings of the dinner-party on discovering the nature of the metamorphosed mutton.

The mirth of our second dinner was as keen, but not as loud, as that of the first. We would not attract our host's attention in any way; for, 'in point of fact, we all knew that the thing could not end where it was, though each of us might have been uncertain as to the next move it would be proper to make. The affair, however, was settled in due time by Long Tom; who, at the conclusion of the repast, extricated his mutton - bone from the basket, and in a cool and business-like manner exchanged it for the pork-bone upon the table. We then gave the bell a pull-a short, stern, but dignified pull; and Miss Molly came into the room full of expectation, but with the undaunted air of an Indian widow consenting to the sati.

Now, our chairman was a fellow who made his fortune afterwards on the northern circuit merely by his eyes. Not that there was any expression in them, but the very reverse. They were large, full, dark, meaningless orbs, which looked at you without winking for minutes at a time, till you were lost and drowned in a profundity that seemed to have neither surface, nor sides, nor bottom. What fascination there could be in such eyes no one could ever imagine; but the mystery did not affect the fact; and although our friend was the mildest-spoken man on earth, I never knew a witness in his hands who did not complain that he was browbeaten!

⚫ We do not want you, mem!' said he with chilling politeness. Be so good as to send the landlord.'

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'It's all the same concern,' said Miss Molly, coming forward with her mind made up. 'What do you please to want?'

What is to pay?'

'A shilling a-head, beer and everything included 1 and I hope you are satisfied that the cheese is a miracle.' There is the money: now send the landlord.' 'The landlord is at the bar, where he ought to be. He is not to wait upon the parlour, I hope? That is my department, and has been ever since I was born in this life of slavery and sacrifice; and I humbly expect'Mem! we would rather see him, if you have no objection: we do not want to say anything harsh to you.' 'Oh never mind me. Not a bit! I will thank you to speak out for three weeks if you please; and pray be as harsh as ever you can, for I am used to be offered up!' 'What is all this?' said Mr Brown gruffly, as he entered the room. Nobody is to be offered up in my house: it is not in my license.' He had evidently been listening at the door. Our chairman fixed his eyes upon the culprit, and a dead silence prevailed for some time in the room.

'Sir,' said he at length, our covenant was for a leg of pork-and we have paid for it.' 'Well, sir?'

'It is not well, sir. Do you call this a respectable house? Do you call yourself a respectable licensed victualler? And do you presume to treat a respectable party in so improper a manner?' We could see the landlord struggle hard, but in vain, to extricate his eyes from their captivity, that he might glance, if only for one moment, upon the dish. Miss Brown, however, who was in no such durance, was by this time bending a look upon the mutton bone, of such helpless dismay, that we wished ourselves well out of the house.

'Sir,' concluded the chairman, rising in dignified disgust,' your imposition was discreditable, and your effrontery has made it worse. We compassionate you-we despise you-and we wish you a particularly good afternoon!' and so saying, he clapped his hat on his head, and strode out of the room, all of us following in imitation, and taking leave of the criminal as we passed with a look of indignant scorn.

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When we got to our boat, one of us was missing it was Long Tom, and we waited impatiently for his arrival, that we might get out far enough into the river to indulge, without discovery, in the laughter that was smothering us. Poor Mr Brown had not turned his eyes upon the dish while we were in the room. He seemed to be under a spell, which compelled his endurance of our parting glances, as we glided away like so many spectre-kings; and all the while he could have had nothing more than an indistinct impression of something dreadful connected with the leg. We wished we could have seen him afterwards; we wished we could have heard the colloquy which must have ensued between him and his sister; but all we were ever after able to ascertain was, that his perplexity ended in downright fury, which discharged itself upon bone and dish alike.

When Long Tom at length rejoined us, we found that, loath to leave the scene of his triumphs, he had been peeping about the court for fresh mischief, when all on a sudden a window opened, and some missive whirled over his head, smashed against the opposite wall, and fell into the dust-bin. Curious to know the nature of the article, Tom tiptoed over the way, and to his great gratification found the bewitched leg, and the fragments of the dish that had held it. He immediately whipped up, unperceived, the mutton bone, exchanged it once more for the pork bone, and took his leave of the Boat-House, well satisfied with his day's work.

I need not say that we rowed merrily home that afternoon. It was so long before we could make another holiday on the river, that the impression made on the brother and sister by the above incident appeared to be in some measure worn out. Not, however, to be accused of shabbiness, we made up by our reckoning what the unfortunate victualler may be supposed to

have lost by our stratagem; and thus our consciences were relieved. The affair, however, was kept a profound secret from the brother and sister, who had been both materially improved in temper, and were never afterwards heard to quarrel about what they should have for dinner.

SKETCHES IN NATURAL HISTORY.
THE LARK.

To the last point of vision, and beyond,
Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted strain
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain.
Yet mightst thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;

A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with rapture more divine;
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam;

True to the kindred points of heaven and home.'
WORDSWORTH.

THE well-known habits of the skylark, as here alluded to by the poet, have made it an object of much popular interest. There is hardly anything in nature more cheerfully beautiful than the song of this bird, as he soars high above his nest on a sunny morning. It has been appreciated in all ages, and the poets, from Theocritus downwards, have been eager to pour out their feelings on the subject. Old Chaucer expresses himself thus beautifully :

'The merry lark, messenger of day, Saleweth in her song the morrow gray, And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright, That all the orient laugheth at the sight.' With Shakspeare the lark is the herald of the morn,' which is a term strictly true to nature, as the bird rises in the air and commences his song before day. He has been heard so early as two o'clock of a spring morning. Milton, who likewise calls him the herald lark, brings him into a series of the most beautiful images anywhere to be met with in poetry, where, in L'Allegro, he describes himself in a situation

'To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-brier or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine.'

These words kindle up the flush and sparkle of summer dawn in our minds, in whatever circumstances we may hear them.

The larks are a family of many species, widely scattered over the globe. To Britain belong only two species -the skylark and the woodlark. The families nearest to them in character are the pipits, buntings, and tits, all of them, like the larks, field-birds. The skylark is a handsome bird, of about seven inches in length, of a gravelly colour, with a pointed conical beak, and long toes spreading out from one point, the hinder one being furnished with an unusually long claw. It is a creature of innocent habits, supported chiefly on grain and seeds, though it feeds its young exclusively with insects and larvæ. The destination of the bird is to a life on the ground, where it builds in any little recess it can find, such as that between two clods, making its nest of dry grass and herbs. Grahame says justly in his Birds of Scotland

'Thou, simple bird, dwellest in a home

The humblest; yet thy morning song ascends

Nearest to heaven.'

Generally, it has four eggs at a time, but it will breed twice or even thrice in one season. The length of the toe is an arrangement of nature, to enable it to walk over grass. It is decidedly the most peculiar feature of the external figure, and, as such, has excited the wonder of the rustic people, among whom a fancy prevails that, if

you wish to know what the lark says, you must lie down on your back in the field and listen, when the following discourse will reach you :Up in the lift we go,

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Te-hee, te-hee, te-hee, te-hee!

There's not a shoemaker on the earth

Can make a shoe to me!

Why so, why so, why so?

Because my heel is as long as my toe!"

The situation of the nest exposes the young to many accidents; but the attachment of the mother is ever ready to repair these as far as possible. A mower having cut off the top of a skylark's nest, leaving her sitting on her young, she speedily set herself to forming a kind of dome of dry grass over their heads, with a hole at the side for herself to go out and in at.* The mother lark, according to Jesse, will even, when alarmed, remove her eggs or young to a new and safer situation. Buffon tells an interesting story of the instinctive philo progenitiveness of a female skylark, which had as yet no offspring of her own. 'In the month of May,' he says, a young hen-bird was brought to me, which was not able to feed without assistance. She was hardly fledged, when I received a nest of three or four unfledged skylarks. She took a strong liking to the newcomers, which were scarcely younger than herself. She tended them night and day, cherished them beneath her wings, and fed them with her bill. Nothing could interrupt her tender offices. If the young ones were taken from her, she flew to them as soon as liberated, and would not attempt to effect her own escape, which she might have done a hundred times. Her affection grew upon her; she neglected food and drink; she now required the same support as her adopted offspring, and expired at last, consumed with maternal anxiety. None of the young ones survived, so essential were her cares, which were equally tender and judicious.'

The singing of birds, it is now well known, bears reference to the feelings of the breeding season. In the United States of America the lark is mute, and the force of a whole host of allusions in English poetry is lost, in consequence of the bird resorting to grounds farther north to breed. With us, the male bird is ever ready, under the genial influence of the sun, or even at its approach, to spring up from the nest and pour forth his song, while the female, directly below, sits upon her young, perhaps enjoying the melody. Mr Mudie has described the mode of this serenade more minutely than any other writer. The lark rises,' he says, 'not like most birds, which climb the air upon one slope, by a succession of leaps, as if a heavy body were raised by a succession of efforts, or steps, with pauses between: it twines upward like a vapour, borne lightly on the atmosphere, and yielding to the motions of that as other vapours do. Its course is a spiral, gradually enlarging; and, seen on the side, it is as if it were keeping the boundary of a pillar of ascending smoke, always on the surface of that logarithmic column (or funnel rather), which is the only figure that, on a narrow base, and spreading as it ascends, satisfies the eye with its stability and self-balancing in the thin and invisible fluid. Nor can it seem otherwise, for it is true to nature. In the case of smoke or vapour, it diffuses itself in the exact proportion as the density or power of support in the air diminishes; and the lark widens the volutions of its spiral in the very same proportion: of course it does so only when perfectly free from disturbance or alarm, because either of these is a new element in the cause, and as such it must modify the effect. When equally undisturbed, the descent is by a reversal of the same spiral; and when that is the case, the song is continued during the whole time that the bird is in the air.

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The accordance of the song with the mode of the ascent and descent is also worthy of notice. When the

* Edward Blyth, in the Naturalist, quoted by Mr Yarrell. + Wilson's American Ornithology.

volutions of the spiral are narrow, and the bird changing its attitude rapidly in proportion to the whole quantity of flight, the song is partially suppressed, and it swells as the spiral widens, and sinks as it contracts; so that though the notes may be the same, it is only when the lark sings poised at the same height that it sings in a uniform key. It gives a swelling song as it ascends, and a sinking one as it comes down; and even if it take but one wheel in the air, as that wheel always includes either an ascent or a descent, it varies the pitch of the song.

'The song of the lark, besides being a most accessible and delightful subject for common observation, is a very curious one for the physiologist. Every one in

the least conversant with the structure of birds must be aware that, with them, the organs of intonation and modulation are inward, deriving little assistance from the tongue, and none, or next to none, from the mandibles of the bill. The windpipe is the musical organ, and it is often very curiously formed. Birds require that organ less for breathing than other animals having a windpipe and lungs, because of the air-cells and breathing-tubes with which all parts of their bodies (even the bones) are furnished. But those diffused breathing organs must act with least freedom when the bird is making the greatest efforts in motion-that is, when ascending or descending; and in proportion as these cease to act, the trachea is the more required for the purposes of breathing. The skylark thus converts the atmosphere into a musical instrument of many stops, and so produces an exceedingly wild and varied songa song which is perhaps not equal either in power or compass, in the single stave, to that of many of the warblers, but one which is more varied in the whole succession. All birds that sing ascending or descending, have similar power, but the skylark has it in a degree superior to any other.'*

At the sight of the hawk, the lark descends in an instant like a stone to the ground. On such occasions, and at any time when apprehensive of danger to its young, it alights a little way from the nest, and gets home in as stealthy a manner as possible. A change of weather has an effect on the disposition to sing.

Warton beautifully says

'Fraught with a transient frozen shower,
If a cloud should haply lower,
Sailing o'er the landscape dark,
Mute on a sudden is the lark ;
But when gleams the sun again
O'er the pearl-besprinkled plain,
And from behind his watery veil

Looks through the thin descending hail;
She mounts, and, lessening to the sight,
Salutes the blithe return of light,
And high her tuneful track pursues,
Mid the dim rainbow's scattered hues.'

The song of the lark is of a merry character, and individuals who are highly susceptible of external influences usually feel cheered by it. This is expressed in the following extract from the Paradis d'Amour :—

'The livelong night, as was my wonted lot,

In tears had passed, nor yet day's orb was hot,
When forth I walked my sorrows to beguile,
Where freshly smelling fields with dewdrops smile.
Already with his shrilling carol gay

The vaulting skylark hailed the sun from far;
And with so sweet a music seemed to play
My heart-strings round, as some propitious star
Had chased whate'er might fullest joyaunce mar:
Bathed in delicious dews that morning bright,
Thus strove my voice to speak my soul's delight :-
Hark-hark!

Thou merry lark!

Reckless thou how I may pine; Would but love my vows befriend, To my warm embraces send

That sweet fair one,

Brightest, dear one,

Then my joy might equal thine.

Madie's Feathered Tribes of the British Islands, ii. 6.

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The lark is in esteem for the table, and when fat, as At Dunstable, where the animal is said to be in perit is sure to be at certain seasons, it is very good eating. fection, in consequence of the dry chalky soil on which it lives, they make lark-pies, which are sent all over England as delicacies. The immensity of the number of skylarks insures that larking' may be carried on to a great extent, with no danger to the preservation of the species. So great are the flocks in which the bird is found in Germany, that a tax of about a halfpenny a dozen, paid upon them at Leipsic, amounted, a number of years ago, to twelve thousand crowns, implying Michaelmas to Martinmas, the grounds in that quarter an annual take of seventeen millions of birds. From are said to be literally covered with them.*

The common mode of catching larks in England is by a large net, which the people draw over the fields. There is, however, a variety in this mode of larking,' which is practised in a few places, and which takes advantage of a curious disposition or weakness of the bird. A curved piece of wood, with bits of lookingglass stuck over it, is fixed across the top of a pole in the ground, with a string and a reel to cause it to which he pulls occasionally, so as to produce the rerevolve. A person sitting at a distance holds the string, volution of the piece of wood. The birds are attracted in great numbers over the place: the common notion

is, that they come to see themselves in the bits of mirror; but probably they are only fascinated by the dazzle of the sun's rays reflected therein. The men then bring a net over the spot, and catch great numbers of birds. In France, when other sporting is intermitted, the country gentlemen set up the twirling miroir in the charge of a boy, and amuse themselves by shooting the assembled larks. Sometimes half a dozen parties will be seen thus engaged on a field of no great extent; even ladies attend to behold the sport. There is something unaccountable in the behaviour of the birds on these occasions, for they flutter round the miroir without any regard to the deaths of their companions, as if insensible to danger. A French gentleman will thus bag six dozen larks before breakfast.†

The lark, like several other of the conirostral tribes, is occasionally found of an extraordinary colour, either black, or almost pure white. They are often reared from the nest in England, and sold as song-birds, in which character good specimens are so highly esteemed as to bring fifteen shillings a-piece. Not long since, a gentleman residing at Hackney, near London, kept twelve or fifteen pairs in an aviary connected with one of his windows, where they appeared in excellent health and plumage, repaying the care and attention bestowed upon them by pursuing the round of their various interesting habits-the song, the courtship, the nest-building, and feeding their young.'

The woodlark is smaller than the skylark: it builds under the shelter of bushes, and perches on trees, and is more insectivorous than its ally. It sings while

* Shaw's Zoology, vol. x. 504. Hone's Every-Day Book, ii. 93. Yarrell's British Birds, i. 450.

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