in a neighbouring brook, it would by no means be difficult for Owls to dart their talons into them as they pass. The sight of the Owl must be very acute, since it can capture mice in dark or dusky weather as it flies over a meadow. The same acuteness of vision would enable it to see fish in a shallow brook, and to secure them in the way mentioned.

'The Lark at Heav'n-gate sings.'

SHAKSPEARE.

SINCE the publication of the former Series of my Gleanings,' one of my labourers, whom Mr. White would designate as a sober hind,' came to tell me that in mowing some grass he had found the nest of a Skylark, with young ones in it, which seemed to have been hatched three or four days. In consequence of a request I had previously made to him, he watched the old birds, and saw them come to their nest and remove their young to a place of greater safety. This they did by taking them up with their feet at different times. I was much pleased with this information, not only as communicating a new and interesting fact in Natural History, but as corroborative of my former statement respecting the uses to which the apparently unnecessary length of the claws of the Lark may be applied.

Many agreeable communications have been made to me since my former work appeared before the public, and amongst the rest the following lines descriptive of the Lark. They are from the pen of a young lady, and are too pretty to be omitted.

Up springs the Lark, and shakes his wings,
'And mounting higher, clearer sings;

6 "Till the small speck eludes the eye,
'Melted into song and sky.

'And now the straining eye discovers
'Where the tiny warbler hovers.
'As he gently sinks to ground,
Sudden his wings he closes round;
And pitching headlong like a stone,
'His flight is o'er,-his song is done.'

The following lines also have always struck me as containing an accurate and charming description of the movements of the Lark both before and after a sudden shower of rain. I have often witnessed the scene early in the spring, and every lover of nature will have made the same observations.

· Fraught with a transient frozen show'r,
'If a cloud should haply low'r,

6 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 watʼry veil
'Looks through the thin descending hail;
'She mounts, and less'ning to the sight,
'Salutes the blythe return of light.
'And high her tuneful track pursues
''Mid the dim rainbow's scatter'd hues.'

T. WARTON.

Large flights of Larks have been observed in autumn going westward. This is the case more generally, I think, in the inland countries. When

I resided in Staffordshire, I had frequent opportunities of noticing this. In cold dry weather in January, Larks will rise, and apparently try to sing. In February they will rise a little way and sing.

'O blind to Nature's all accordant plan,
'Think not the war-song is confin'd to man;
' In shrill defiance, ere they join the fray,
'Robin to Robin chaunts the martial lay.'

ΑΝΟΝ.

I had an opportunity this summer of witnessing the distress of a Robin, which, on returning to her nest with food for her young, discovered they had disappeared. Her low and plaintive wailings were incessant. She appeared to seek for them among the neighbbouring bushes, now and then changing her mournful cry into one which I fancied was a call to her brood to come to her. She kept the food in her mouth for a short time, but when she found that her cries were unanswered, let it fall to the ground. There was something affecting in this little incident, which has also been remarked by the 'Poet of Nature' in the case of a Nightingale, and is thus beautifully described:

' the Nightingale

when returning with her loaded bill,
'The astonished mother finds a vacant nest,
"By the hard hands of unrelenting clowns
Robb'd; to the ground the vain provision falls;
'Her pinions ruffle, and, low drooping, scarce
'Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade;
Where, all abandon'd to despair, she sings
'Her sorrows through the night; and on the bough