skylark

I remember once taking a tramp in your glorious Surrey hills, thinking of nothing but gorse and skylarks, when I came out on a vast circle of land, and over me lifted a vast, voiceless structure, tier above tier of seats, as huge as a Roman amphitheatre and as empty as a new letter-rack.

'The Skylark' and 'The Cloud' are among the most dazzling and unique of all outbursts of poetic genius.

He seldom went abroad without one or two trotting at his side, and a skylark would keep Shelley in society for a week."

Weather in towns is like a skylark in a counting-house--out of place and in the way.

He was fond of admiring himself in a looking glass; and a merry-faced little Indian boy from the Rio Negro, whom we had for some months on board, soon perceived this, and used to mock him: Jemmy, who was always rather jealous of the attention paid to this little boy, did not at all like this, and used to say, with rather a contemptuous twist of his head, "Too much skylark." It seems yet wonderful to me, when I think over all his many good qualities that he should have been of the same race, and doubtless partaken of the same character, with the miserable, degraded savages whom we first met here.

Upland farmers can help skylarks, using the management of permanent grassland with low inputs option, and in arable areas can leave small, unsown plots in their cereal fields for the birds to feed and nest in through the summer.

Setbacks in harvesting have subsequently delayed sowing, but this hitch in the farming calendar means there is still time for farmers sowing winter cereals to make a space for skylarks in next year's crop.