A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 231 



ridge-pole of a barn. He rose for perhaps thirty 

 feet, not spirally, but in a zigzag course, like 

 a horse climbing a hill with a heavy load, 

 all the time calling, chip, chip, chip. Then he 

 went round and round in a small circle, with a 

 kind of hovering action of the wings, vocifer- 

 ating hurriedly, Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe ; after 

 which he shot down into the top of a tree, and 

 with a lively flirt of his tail took up again the 

 same eloquent theme. During the next few 

 weeks I several times found birds of this spe- 

 cies similarly engaged. And it is worthy of re- 

 mark that, of the four flycatchers which regu- 

 larly pass the summer with us, three may be 

 said to be in the habit of singing in the air, 

 while the fourth (the wood pewee) does the 

 same thing, only with less frequency. It is cu- 

 rious, also, on the other hand, that not one of 

 our eight common New England thrushes, as 

 far as I have ever seen or heard, shows the least 

 tendency toward any such state of lyrical exal- 

 tation. Yet the thrushes are song birds par ex- 

 cellence, while the phoebe, the least flycatcher, 

 and the kingbird are not supposed to be able 

 to sing at all. The latter have the soul of mu- 

 sic in them, at any rate ; and why should it not 

 be true of birds, as it is of human poets and 

 would-be poets, that sensibility and faculty are 

 not always found together? Perhaps those 



