QQ NEWS FROM THE BIRDS. 



swung back a hundred yards at least, and then 

 mounted upward again, thus gyrating back and 

 forth, springing upward and singing without a 

 pause for breath. The song grew fainter, and 

 sweeter, if possible, every moment. After 

 reaching a height beyond the ken of the un- 

 aided eye, the vocalist and athlete closed his 

 wings and dived straight downward to the 

 ground with a velocity that made the observer's 

 head swim. Yet the bird touched the grass al- 

 most as lightly as a snowflake. 



Thus it would seem that we have at least 

 two birds in America which haunt the sky 

 when they sing, and disdain the ground. Some 

 time the poets will rhyme about them as Shel- 

 ley and Wordsworth rhymed about the skylark. 



But we have other birds that sing while on 

 the wing, although they do not vault very 

 high into the air. Many times I have seen 

 that " bonny bit of blue," the indigo bird, dart 

 lightly out on the upbuoying ether, and while 

 poising on the wing, chatter his most rollicksome 

 lay. I have seen the Maryland yellowthroat 

 perform a similar feat, at least a half dozen 

 times. The bol)olink does most of his singing 

 while circling in the air, but he does not mount 

 up, up beyond the sight, as does the skylark, 

 and as a hack writer on birds declared some 



