AN OCTOBER ABROAD 163 



than I had expected to hear; indeed, I thought it a 

 little sharp and harsh, a little stubbly, but in 

 other respects, in strength and gladness and conti 

 nuity, it was wonderful. And the more I heard 

 it the better I liked it, until I would gladly have 

 given any of my songsters at home for a bird that 

 could shower down such notes, even in autumn. 

 Up, up, went the bird, describing a large easy spiral 

 till he attained an altitude of three or four hundred 

 feet, when, spread out against the sky for a space 

 of ten or fifteen minutes or more, he poured out 

 his delight, filling all the vault with sound. The 

 song is of the sparrow kind, and, in its best parts, 

 perpetually suggested the notes of our vesper spar 

 row; but the wonder of it is its copiousness and 

 sustained strength. There is no theme, no begin 

 ning, middle, or end, like most of our best bird- 

 songs, but a perfect swarm of notes pouring out like 

 bees from a hive, and resembling each other nearly 

 as closely, and only ceasing as the bird nears the 

 earth again. We have many more melodious song 

 sters ; the bobolink in the meadows for instance, the 

 vesper sparrow in the pastures, the purple finch in 

 the groves, the winter wren, or any of the thrushes 

 in the woods, or the wood-wagtail, whose air song 

 is of a similar character to that of the skylark's, and 

 is even more rapid and ringing, and is delivered in 

 nearly the same manner; but our birds all stop 

 when the skylark has only just begun. Away he 

 goes on quivering wing, inflating his throat fuller 

 and fuller, mounting and mounting, and turning to 



