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246 THE INVITATION. 



served by any naturalist. Yet, it is a well estab- 

 lished characteristic, and may be verified by any per- 

 son who will spend a half hour in the woods where 

 this bird abounds on some June afternoon or evening. 

 I hear it very frequently after sundown, when the 

 ecstatic singer can hardly be distinguished against the 

 sky. I know of a high, bald-top mountain where I 

 have sat late in the afternoon and heard them as 

 often as one every minute. Sometimes the bird 

 would be far below me, sometimes near at hand ; and 

 very frequently the singer would be hovering a hun- 

 dred 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 

 lods 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 percb 

 Vom which it had started. 



