SAND DUNES AND SALT MARSHES 



its vehemence is such that it generally lifts 

 him up into the air, and as he flies about 

 slowly, he pours forth his soul. The song is 

 a wonderful succession of trills, now low and 

 deep, now swelling into a loud all-pervading 

 melody which resembles that of the canary- 

 bird ; now it dies away to a low warbling, and 

 again bursts out into a joyous trill which takes 

 the bird exhausted to his perch. 



The song of this bird, as of many others 

 in this country, is worthy of the poet's pen. 

 Many people suppose that our song birds are 

 few and inferior as compared with those in 

 England, with whose ways and songs they are 

 familiar from poems and from references in 

 literature. A songster, no matter how com- 

 monplace, that has been praised by Chaucer 

 and Shakespeare and Tennyson, has a pres- 

 tige that our unheralded birds lack, be their 

 voices ever so fine. Some day they will 'come 

 into their own and be as much appreciated as 

 their relatives over the water. 



Entirely different from these song birds are 

 two species of owls occasionally seen in the 

 dunes. One of these, the short-eared owl, a 

 bird widely distributed throughout the world, 

 is rare in winter but not uncommon during 



98 



