Far better than taking the eggs is to take a photograph, or to make a sketch of the hen sitting on her nest, or to make a collection of pictures of the different kinds of nests built by the different kinds of birds.
Aberdeen, in Scotland, is supposed to be specially well off for skylarks for the following reason:
A few years ago there came a very severe gale and snow-storm late in March, and all the high ground inland was so buried under snow and ice that the birds were all driven to the Lower land near the coast. The fields by the seashore were covered with them.
Numbers of people went out to catch them with birdlime, nets, snares, and guns. Large numbers were taken alive to be 'sent to market' in London and other towns.
One gentleman found a man selling a big cage full of them. They were crowded up to a fearful extent, and all fluttering with terror at their imprisonment, struggling over each other in their frantic desire to escape. He felt so sorry for them that he bought the whole lot, and took them to his warehouse, where he was able to give them plenty of room and food and water.
Then he offered to buy all the larks that were being captured for the market at market prices. In this way he received over a thousand; and these he put in a big room, where they had comparative freedom and plenty of food. It is said that the noise of their singing in the morning was almost deafening, and crowds of birds used to gather over the house to hear them.
At last the bad weather passed off, the sun shone out again, and the fields became green and bright, and then the kind man who had housed the birds opened the windows of the room and all the birds flew out in a happy crowd, chirping and singing as they mounted into the bright, warm air, or fluttered off to the adjoining fields and woods. And there they built their nests and hatched out their young, so that to-day the song of the lark is to be heard everywhere round Aberdeen.
* * * * *
BIRDS' NESTS.
One January I went "bird's-nesting" with a party of Scout-masters. It seems an odd time of year to do that; but we really went to see how they manage to persuade birds to come and make their nests in the Bird Sanctuary, near Brentford, just outside London.