BIRD-SONGS 



turf in the bottom of the cage; but you want to stop 

 your ears, it is so harsh and sibilant and penetrating. 

 But up there against the morning sky, and above the 

 wide expanse of fields, what delight we have in it! 

 It is not the concord of sweet sounds : it is the soar- 

 ing spirit of gladness and ecstasy raining down upon 

 us from " heaven's gate." 



Then, if to the time and the place one could only 

 add the association, or hear the bird through the 

 vista of the years, the song touched with the magic 

 of youthful memories ! One season a friend in Eng- 

 land sent me a score of skylarks in a cage. I gave 

 them their liberty in a field near my place. They 

 drifted away, and I never heard them or saw them 

 again. But one Sunday a Scotchman from a neigh- 

 b'oring city called upon me, and declared with visible 

 excitement that on his way along the road he had 

 heard a skylark. He was not dreaming; he knew it 

 was a skylark, though he had not heard one since 

 he had left the banks of the Doon, a quarter of a 

 century or more before. What pleasure it gave him ! 

 How much more the song meant to him than it 

 would have meant to me ! For the moment he was 

 on his native heath again. Then I told him about 

 the larks I had liberated, and he seemed to enjoy it 

 all over again with renewed appreciation. 



Many years ago some skylarks were liberated on 

 Long Island, and they became established there, and 

 may now occasionally be heard in certain localities. 

 33 



