COUNTRY LIFE
STANDING on the road, I watched a lark descending. It twittered as it came down and then, as larks do, it cut off its little song abruptly, and dropped on to the grass. 1 was about 120 yards from the spot on which it alighted and, being lower, was able to see it on the contour of a brow. A barbed-wire fence was in the way, but I determined to see whether I could find the nest, a thing I have not done in more than twenty years. When ,I got over the fence, I climbed slowly to the brow. To my surprise the lark was singing in the grass a few feet from me, as I came up with it. A second lark ran across the brow and flew off. I walked to the right. The first settled on a tuft to my left. I walked to the left still searching, and both larks dis- appeared over a rise. I could hear one of them singing again, and was lured on until I had no idea where the nest could be. I laughed at my foolishness and returned to the road. Finding a lark's nest was never difficult in my boyhood, but I never chased a song nor ever attempted it after such superficial observation. Back on the road, I stopped to hear the lark ascending in the bright sun of the afternoon. It had something to be happy about, and there was justice in my having cut my hand on the wire of the fence.
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