be found to disagree with the descriptions given by others, as of course they must in little particulars, it must be observed, that the colours of some Birds vary according to age, some species not arriving at the perfect state of their feathering till three or four years old. I have endeavoured, however, to make choice of the most perfect subjects, and as I found them in their wild state, not cramped or mutilated by being confined in cages.
In the same genus or family of Birds there is a general similarity or agreement prevails amongst the species, in the figure and situation of the nests, as well as in the materials of which they are composed, and the eggs which they contain.
The various species of larks compose their nests of dried grass and air, placing them on the ground. Linnets chuse out some low bush, and compose their nests of moss, hair, and down. Finches nestle in some prickly shrub or tree, and fabricate their nests with small sticks, moss, wool, roots, hair, and feathers. Wrens and most of the summer warblers hide their nests under brakes or bushes near the ground, in walls or hollow trees, and make use of fern, moss, grass, hair, and feathers. But be the matter of which the nests are composed, or the place where they are found, what they may, there is in every species something peculiar to itself, in the size, form, and habit of the nest and eggs together, by which any one that has well observed them, is enabled to say with certainty, on sight of the nest and eggs, to what Bird they belong.
The Eggs, in some species, are subject to variety in respect of colour; the titlark, for instance, is a perfect Proteus in this particular, not only in separate nests, but in the same individual. I have seen nests of this bird with five or six eggs, and not two amongst them precisely alike, either in the markings, or the hue of colour. The Eggs of the lesser field-lark are also variable in colour.
The greater and lesser crested larks, though said to be natives of Yorkshire, are rarities I have not yet been able to discover, though I have for many years made diligent search after them.
That the male birds in the skylark, the lesser field-lark, and the woodlark, have a power of raising the feathers on the crown, in form of a crest, and that they do erect them in breeding-time, I very well know; but as to what are called crested larks, if specifically distinct from these, are birds with which I am unacquainted; and if any one will favour me by sending fair specimens of them, alive or dead, the obligation shall be gratefully acknowledged by me.
