The Return of Song 225 



ness and the height from which it is poured. The 

 woodlark also sings on the wing ; but it mounts 

 in wavering circles, and floats with an air of careless 

 indifference instead of springing at once into the 

 air and into song, and soaring high into heaven. 

 It also sings perched upon a tree, or even a telegraph 

 wire ; while much of the peculiar attraction of 

 the skylark's melody is due to its being almost 

 always uttered in mid-air, although rarely the bird 

 will also sing from some heather-tuft upon the 

 common, or large clod in the bare March ploughs. 

 Unbroken and impetuous as is the skylark's music 

 while it lasts, the amazing song-flights seldom 

 occupy more than three minutes from earth to 

 earth ; but the woodlark's easier song may be 

 poured out much longer without a break, and is 

 hardly less continuous. It combines the silvery 

 quality of the skylark with a touch of the deeper 

 and softer tones of the blackbird or blackcap. 

 But its most distinctive feature is that rare crescendo 

 on a single repeated note, which is characteristic 

 of no other British bird except the nightingale. 



Of the few other birds which occasionally resume 

 their song as early as the beginning or middle of 

 September, the chiff-chaff is the only summer 

 migrant. First to be heard among the boughs 

 of naked spring, it is never wholly silent till it 

 leaves us in October for the south. Its comrade, 

 the willow-wren, may also be heard drowsily 

 whispering its song in the July woods ; but it 

 less often sustains even the echo of it until the 

 last days before its departure in September. The 

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