BIRD-SONGS 



A very interesting feature of our bird-songs is the 

 wing-song, or song of ecstasy. It is not the gift of 

 many of our birds. Indeed, less than a dozen species 

 are known to me as ever singing on the wing. It 

 seems to spring from more intense excitement and 

 self-abandonment than the ordinary song delivered 

 from the perch. When its joy reaches the point of 

 rapture, the bird is literally carried off its feet, and 

 up it goes into the air, pouring out its song as a 

 rocket pours out its sparks. The skylark and the 

 bobolink habitually do this, while a few others of 

 our birds do it only on occasions. One summer, up 

 in the Catskills, I added another name to my list 

 of ecstatic singers that of the vesper sparrow. 

 Several times I heard a new song in the air, and 

 caught a glimpse of the bird as it dropped back to 

 the earth. My attention would be attracted by a 

 succession of hurried, chirping notes, followed by a 

 brief burst of song, then by the vanishing form of the 

 bird. One day I was lucky enough to see the bird as 

 it was rising to its climax in the air, and to identify 

 it as the vesper sparrow. The burst of song that 

 crowned the upward flight of seventy-five or one 

 hundred feet was brief ; but it was brilliant and 

 striking, and entirely unlike the leisurely chant of 

 the bird while upon the ground. It suggested a lark, 

 but was less buzzing or humming. The preliminary 

 chirping notes, uttered faster and faster as the bird 

 mounted in the air, were like the trail of sparks 

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