274 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



sion of deep internal notes, followed by a set song 

 in clear, ringing tones ; and then, suddenly taking 

 wing, he flies straight away, close to the surface, 

 fluttering like a moth, and at a distance of twenty 

 to thirty yards turns and flies in a wide circle round 

 the female, singing loudly all the time, hedging her 

 in with melody as it were. 



Many songsters in widely different families possess 

 the habit of soaring and falling alternately while 

 singing, and in some cases all the aerial postures 

 and movements, the swift or slow descent, vertical, 

 often with oscillations, or in a spiral, and sometimes 

 with a succession of smooth oblique lapses, seem to 

 have an admirable correspondence with the changing 

 and falling voice — melody and motion being united 

 in a more intimate and beautiful way than in the 

 most perfect and poetic forms of human dancing. 



One of the soaring singers is a small yellow field- 

 finch of La Plata — Sycalis luteola ; and this species, 

 like some others, changes the form of its display 

 with the seasons. It lives in immense flocks, and 

 during the cold season it has, like most finches, only 

 aerial pastimes, the birds wheeling about in a cloud, 

 pursuing each other with lively chirpings. In 

 August, when the trees begin to blossom, the flock 

 betakes itself to a plantation, and, sitting on the 

 branches, the birds sing in a concert of innumerable 

 voices, producing a great volume of sound, as of a 

 high wind when heard at a distance. Heard near, 

 it is a great mass of melody ; not a confused tangle 

 of musical sounds as when a host of Troupials sing 

 in concert, but the notes, although numberless, 

 seem to flow smoothly and separately, producing au 



