THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 261 
titor. The ear can listen to his music alone, to 
which that of all others seems a mere accom¬ 
paniment. Neither is this strain altogether 
imitative. His own native notes, which are 
easily distinguishable by such as are well ac¬ 
quainted with those of our various song-birds, 
are bold and full, and varied seemingly without 
limits. They consist of short expressions of 
two, three, or, at most, five or six, syllables, 
generally interspersed with imitations, and all 
of them uttered with great emphasis and ra¬ 
pidity, and continued with undiminished ardor 
for half an hour or an hour at a time. His 
expanded wings and tail, glistening with white, 
and the buoyant gayety of his action, arresting 
the eye, as his song does most irresistibly the 
ear, he sweeps round with enthusiastic ecstasy; 
he mounts and descends as his song swells or 
dies away; and, as my friend, Mr. Bartram, has 
beautifully expressed it, “he bounds aloft with 
the celerity of an arrow, as if to recover or re¬ 
call his very soul, expired in the last elevated 
strain.” While thus exerting himself a by¬ 
stander destitute of sight would suppose that 
the whole feathered tribes had assembled to¬ 
gether on a trial of skill, each striving to pro- 
