THE INVITATION. 245 



lide and side. The sparrows, thrushes, warblers, 

 woodpeckers, buntings, etc., are all hoppers. On the 

 other hand, all aquatic or semi-aquatic birds are 

 walkers. The plovers and sandpipers and snipes 

 run rapidly. Among the land-birds, the grouse, pig- 

 eons, quails, larks, and various blackbirds, walk. The 

 swallows walk, also, whenever they use their feet at 

 all, but very awkwardly. The larks walk with ease 

 and grace. Note the meadow-lark strutting about all 

 day in the meadows. 



Besides being walkers, the larks, or birds allied to 

 the larks, all sing upon the wing, usually poised or 

 circling in the air, with a hovering, tremulous flight. 

 The meadow-lark occasionally does this in the early 

 part of the season. At such times its long-drawn 

 note or whistle becomes a rich, amorous warble. 



The bobolink, also, has both characteristics, and, 

 notwithstanding the difference of form and build, etc., 

 is very suggestive of the English skylark, as it figures 

 in the books, and is, no doubt, fully its equal as a 

 songster. 



Of our small wood-birds we have three varieties, 

 east of the Mississippi, closely related to each other, 

 which I have already spoken of, and which walk, and 

 sing, more or less, on the wing, namely, the two 

 species of water-thrush or wagtails, and the oven-bird 

 or wood-wagtail. The latter is the most common, 

 jmd few observers of the birds can have failed to 

 notice its easy, gliding walk. Its other lark trait, 

 Vamely, singing in the air, seems not to have been ob- 



