224 THE INVITATION. 



me ; sometimes near at hand, and very frequently the 

 singer would be hovering a hundred feet above the 

 summit. He would start from the trees on one side 

 of the open space, reach his climax in the air, and 

 plunge down on the other side. Its descent after the 

 song is finished is very rapid, and precisely like that 

 of the titlark when it sweeps down from its course to 

 alight on the ground. 



I first verified this observation some years ago. I 

 had long been familiar with the song, but had only 

 strongly suspected the author of it, when, as I was 

 walking in the woods one evening, just as the leaves 

 were putting out, I saw one of these birds but a few 

 rods from me. I was saying to myself, half audibly, 

 " Come, now, show off, if it is you ; I have come to 

 the woods expressly to settle this point," when it be- 

 gan to ascend, by short hops and flights, through the 

 branches, uttering a sharp, preliminary chirp. I fol- 

 lowed it with my eye ; saw it mount into the air and 

 circle over the woods, and saw it sweep down again 

 and dive through the trees, almost to the very perch 

 from which it had started. 



As the paramount question in the life of a bird is the 

 question of food, perhaps the most serious troubles our 

 feathered neighbors encounter are early in the spring, 

 after the supply of fat with which nature stores every 

 corner and by-place of the system, thereby anticipat- 

 ing the scarcity of food, has been exhausted, and the 

 sudden and severe changes in the weather which occur 



