BIRD-SONGS 
A very interesting feature of our bird-songs is the 
wing-song, or song of ecstasy. It is not the gift of 
many of our birds. Indeed, less than a dozen species 
are known to me as ever singing on the wing. It 
seems to spring from more intense excitement and 
self-abandonment than the ordinary song delivered 
from the perch. When its joy reaches the point of 
rapture, the bird is literally carried off its feet, and 
up it goes into the air, pouring out its song as a 
rocket pours out its sparks. The skylark and the 
bobolink habitually do this, while a few others of 
our birds do it only on occasions. One summer, up 
in the Catskills, I added another name to my list 
of ecstatic singers —that of the vesper sparrow. 
Several times I heard a new song in the air, and 
caught a glimpse of the bird as it dropped back to 
the earth. My attention would be attracted by a 
succession of hurried, chirping notes, followed by a 
brief burst of song, then by the vanishing form of the 
bird. One day I was lucky enough fo see the bird as 
it was rising to its climax in the air, and to identify 
it as the vesper sparrow. The burst of song that 
crowned the upward flight of seventy-five or one 
hundred feet was brief; but it was brilliant and 
striking, and entirely unlike the leisurely chant of 
the bird while upon the ground. It suggested a lark, 
but was less buzzing or humming. The preliminary 
chirping notes, uttered faster and faster as the bird 
mounted in the air, were like the trail of sparks 
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