54 BIRDS ON THE WING. 



There is a wide difference between the evolu- 

 tions of these birds and those of the little goldfinch, 

 which, as some one has said, festoons the airs with 

 graceful loops of flight. Listen to his lightsome 

 song as he rocks himself on the buoyant ether. 

 '''• Pe-cJiick-o-pee^ pe-chick-o-pee^'^ he carols, which 

 may be freely translated into, " Bless me, this is 

 pleasant, riding on the wind ! " What other bird 

 would ever think of converting the atmosphere into 

 a portable rocking-chair ? One day a friend with 

 whom I was walking, after watching a goldfinch 

 sweeping overhead, exclaimed that its manner of 

 flight reminded him of riding on a switch-back, and 

 it seemed to me that the simile Avas quite apt. 



The wing-feats of the brown thrasher, the cat- 

 bird, the thrushes, the towhee-bunting and the 

 wrens consist mostly of short, fluttering spurts of 

 flight, while the kinglets and warblers flit fairy-like 

 among the branches of bushes and trees. No one 

 can have failed to notice the rapid wing-strokes of 

 the meadow larks as they dart across the fields or 

 balance tliemselves in mid-air. Tell me why the 

 titlark dashes like forked lightning across the sky, 

 giving you the impression that he must have lost 

 his way in the trackless ocean of air. 



Whether men shall ever succeed in constructing 



