A Caged Skylark i57 perched on my hand and went through his post prandial toilet, thus giving the class an idea of bird-taming which no amount of books or anything I might have said could have possibly equaled. Many expressed themselves as never having seen so successful a "dem- onstration." Some said that I must be in league with higher powers, and it all must have been '"providential." This may be true, for anything I know to the contrary. But it may have been simply im- proving the opportunities of a happy accident; and 'accidents,' we know, "never happen among the Hottentots." If flowers and honey can do it, at any rate, such accidents shall be more fre- quent about my home in the future. A Peculiarity of a Caged Skylark BY H. M. COLLINS ^O birds reverse the usual order of things, and from a serious and stolid youth develop mature play- fulness ? I have been led to ask myself this question by observing the extraordinary playful- ness exhibited by a pet Skylark in extreme old age. Upon hearing the owner of the bird declare. "Dickie has reached his dotage, and, is now in a state of second childhood," it occurred to me that birds have no season of youthful frivolity such as Mother Nature accords to her other children. We are accustomed to associate the idea of youth with playfulness : we picture to ourselves the lamb frisking in the meadows, the frolicsome kitten playing upon the hearth, and we groan inwardly when we meditate upon the destructive propensities of our pet puppies, but we think of our young feathered friends as lying inert in their nests, gaping wide open their yellow-edged beaks incessantly for food, and apparently interested in nothing else. A caged Skylark is a deplorable object generally, but the Lark of which I am about to write was a bird 'with a history,' and one, whose cage was not a prison but a home. While his native meadow (in Ireland) was being mowed, one of his wings was struck by the mowing-machine and the last joint terribly mutilated. One of the workmen picked up the poor little sufferer and gave him to a little boy whose father was something of a naturalist and a great lover of birds. Examination of the shattered wing revealed the fact that amputation of the last joint would be necessary if the bird's life was to be preserved. The operation was performed, and the little patient was placed in a very large cage carpeted with fresh, green sods. He was well supplied with food and water ; the injured wing healed
