'There is nothing which signifies or expresses summer more, I think, than the skylark singing as it soars high against the sun in a clear blue sky. Such an ecstatic song for such a nondescript bird. An exaltation of larks indeed!' (Greytown, Wairarapa, 2005)

 

'Alauda' is the middle name of Esther Krop (Esther Alauda Krop). It's the scientific name for skylark, given by Linnaeus in 1758.

This is the song of the skylark.

 

 

The name Alauda is also bestowed by Julius Caesar in about the year 55 BC on the first example of a regular Roman legion: the
V legion, levied in a foreign country and composed of barbarians. The designation was, in all probability, applied from a plume upon the helmet, resembling the 'apex' of the bird in question.