Song Birds and Water Fowl 



our loftiest thoughts. Well might Celia Thaxter 

 say of the swallow, 



" A spark of the gladness of God thou art ! " 



Next below the aerial group is the one that 

 comprises the mass of all our singing birds, 

 among which are a very few, like the goldfinch, 

 the bobolink, and the blue-gray gnatcatcher, 

 that show some affinity with their songless con- 

 freres of the upper air, in the luxury of wanton, 

 aimless chase. The song birds and kindred 

 families, being commonly found among the 

 trees, where they chiefly nest and sing, and 

 rarely soaring above them for any prolonged 

 excursion, may properly be called the arboreal 

 group. This contains the most musical, as well 

 as the majority of the most beautiful in form 

 and plumage of all the race ; and yet our fuller 

 appreciation of them is not a little due to the 

 closer approximation of their habitat to our 

 own daily life. By insensible gradations through 

 woodpeckers, nuthatches, etc., that are less vol- 

 itant, and more closely adherent to trees ; owls, 

 parrots, and whippoorwills, that are still more 

 sedentary ; and meadow larks and sea-side 

 finches, that are conspicuously ground birds, 

 we descend to what may be called the terrestrial 



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