The Audubon Societies 



183 



pass through on the spring migration. Others, like the Thrushes, seldom sing 

 until they arrive on their nesting-grounds and sometimes not even until the 

 females arrive. Similarly, song ceases soon after nesting is begun, or at least 

 by the time that the young leave the nest. Thus, Bobolinks and Orioles cease 

 singing the last of June or early in July, and other birds follow suit shortly 

 afterward, except those that nest late or have more than one brood. During 

 the moulting season of August and September, practically all birds are silent, 

 except those indefatigable songsters, the Song Sparrows and the Red-eyed 

 Vireos. 



Inasmuch as the object of song is to announce the bird's presence, the bird 

 usually chooses a very conspicuous place from which to sing, thicket-loving 

 species like the Brown Thrasher and Song Sparrows leaving their hiding-places 

 and mounting to the tops of the bushes or trees to express themselves, and 

 field-loving birds, like the Meadowlarks and Vesper Sparrows, mounting to 

 the tops of fence-posts. Many terrestrial birds that can find no prominent 

 places from which to sing, develop the habit of flying up into the air to sing, 

 the flight-songs of the European Skylark being one of the beautiful expressions 

 of nature. The performance of our own Horned Larks, while less musical, is 

 no less remarkable. Starting from 

 the ground, the male bird mounts 

 into the air on an immense spiral, 

 rising until he is barely visible 

 from the ground. Then, hovering 

 for a few moments or fluttering 

 like a falling leaf, he gives vent to 

 a song which makes up in enthu- 

 siasm what it lacks in harmony. 

 At the close of the song, he may 

 drop to a lower level and repeat it, 

 or he may perform one of the most 

 remarkable feats of which a bird is 

 capable, for, closing his wings, he 

 drops like a plummet toward the 

 earth. From the merest speck in the 

 sky, hundreds of feet in the air, he 

 dashes toward the earth as though 

 he were a stone, until one expects to 

 see him smashed to pieces against 

 the hard earth. When within a very few feet of destruction, however, he 

 spreads his wings, checks his momentum by a forward glide, and gracefully 

 alights. Birds of almost any species occasionally indulge in flight-songs when 

 no perch seems to satisfy them and they bound into the air on quivering 

 wings to give vent to their feelings. Especially is this true of the Ovenbird 



HOUSE WREN SINGING 



The notes are produced in the syrinx but are 



modulated by the throat 



