See Alauda, Ornithology Index, and Bird-Catching.

The lark is not only a very agreeable bird for the cage, but will live upon almost any food, so that it have once a week a fresh tuft of three leaved grass. The proper method of keeping them in health is this: there must be two pans of food, the one containing meat, the other oat meal and hempseed. A very good food is the following: boil an egg very hard, to which add the crumb of a halfpenny loaf, and as much hempseed; let the egg be chopped very small, and the hempseed bruised in the mortar; when these are mixed, the bread is to be crumbled in among the rest, and the whole to be rolled together with a common rolling pin, and kept for use. There must be some fine small gravel strewn at the bottom of the cage, and renewed at farthest once in a week. This will prevent the bird's feet from getting hurt by being clogged with the dung; and his barking in this will keep him also from growing lousy, after which few come to good. There must be a perch in the cage, and it must either be lined with green bays, or made of fine matting, which the lark is very fond of. When the bird is first taken, some meat must be strewn upon the land in the bottom of the cage; for it will be sometimes almost famished before it finds the meat in the pan.

The cock bird of this kind is known from the hen by the loudness and length of his call, by his tailfeathers as he walks about the cage, and by his doubling his notes in the evening, as if he was going with his mate to roost. A better rule than all others, however, is his singing strongly; for the hen wood lark sings but very weakly.—Both the cock and hen of this kind are subject to many disorders; the principal of these are cramps, giddiness of the head, and breeding lice. Cleanliness is the best cure for the first and the last of these complaints; but we know of no cure for the other. A good strong bird, however, will often last very well five or six years, and improve all the time.