Excerpt from The History of Birds: Their Varieties and Oddities: Comprimising Graphic Descriptions of Nearly All Known Species of Birds, With Fishes and Insects, the World Over, and Illustrating Their Varied Habits, Modes of Life, and Distinguishing Peculiarities by Means of Delightful Ane

The Wood-lark is somewhat smaller than the Skylark, and its form IS shorter and more thick. The top of the head and back are marked with large black spots, edged with pale reddish brown. The head is surrounded with a whitish coronet of feathers, reaching from eye to eye. The throat is of a yellowish white, spotted With black. The breast is tinged with red; the belly is white; and the coverts of the wings are brown edged with white and dull yellow. The quill-feathers are dusky; the exterior edges of the first white, and of the others yellow; and their tips are blunt and white. The first feather of the wing is shorter than the second: in the Sky-lark they are nearly equal. The tail is black, the outermost feather tipped with white the exterior web, and the inner side of the interior web, are also white, in the second feather the exterior web only is white. The legs are of a dull yellow.

In many respects, both of habit and appearance, these birds diner from the Sky-lark. They perch as well in trees as on the ground but this they do only on the largest branches, where they are able to secure their hold without positively embracing the stems with their toes. The Sky-lark forms its nest amongst grass near the bottom of a hedge, or in lays where the grass is rank and dry. The fabric is of loose texture, and constructed of withered herbs, and fibrous roots, with a few horse-hairs in the inside. It has scarcely any hollow, the bottom being nearly on a level with the sides. The whole nest is seldom much more than half an ounce in weight. The number of eggs is about four; these are of a pale bloom-color, beautifully mottled, and clouded with red and yellow.

The young birds are tender, and not easily to be reared in a cage. When first taken from the nest, they should be fed with raw sheep's heart, or other lean fresh meat, mixed with hard-boiled egg, a little bread, and bruised hemp-seed. These must be chopped together as fine as possible, and moistened with water.

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