358 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS. 
it has heard before. Properly to apprehend 
and appreciate bird-songs, especially to dis- 
entangle them from the confused murmur of 
nature, requires more or ‘ess familiarity with 
them. If the Duke had)passed 2 season with 
us in some ove place in the country, in New 
York or New England, he would probably 
have modified his views about the silence of 
our birds. 
One season, early in May, I discovered an 
English sky-lark in full song above a broad, 
low meadow in the midst of a landscape 
that possessed features attractive to a great 
variety of our birds. Every morning for many 
days I used to go and sit on the brow of a 
low hill that commanded the field, or else 
upon a gentle swell in the midst of the 
meadow itself, and listen to catch the song of 
the lark. The maze and tangle of bird-voices 
and bird-choruses through which my ear 
groped its way searching for the new song 
can be imagined when I say that within hear- 
ing there were from fifteen to twenty different 
kinds of songsters, all more or less in full tune. 
If their notes and calls could have been mate- 
rialized and made as palpable to the eye as 
they were tothe ear, I think they would have 
veiled the landscape and darkened the day. 
There were big songs and little songs, songs 
from the trees, the bushes, the ground, the 
air, warbles, trills, chants, musical calls and 
squeals, etc. Near by in the foreground 
were the cat-bird and the brown thrasher, 
the former in the bushes, the latter on the 
top of a hickory. These birds are related 
to the mocking-bird, and may be called per- 
formers; their songs area series of vocal feats, 
like the exhibition of an acrobat; they throw 
musical somersaults and turn and twist and 
contort themselves in a very edifying manner, 
with now and then a ventriloquial touch. The 
cat-bird is the more shrill, supple, and fem- 
inine; the thrasher the louder, richer,and more 
audacious. The mate of the latter had a nest, 
which J found in a field under the spread- 
ing ground juniper. From several points 
along the course of a bushy little creek 
there came a song, or a melody of notes and 
calls, that also put me out—the tipsy, hodge- 
podge strain of the polyglot chat, a strong, 
olive-backed, yellow-breasted, black-billed 
bird, with a voice like that of a jay or acrow 
that had been to school toa robin or an oriole 
—a performer sure to arrest your ear and sure 
to elude your eye. There is no bird so afraid 
of being seen, or fonder of being heard. 
The golden voice of the wood-thrush that 
came to me from the border of the woods on 
my right was no hinderance to the ear, it was 
so serene, liquid, and, as it were, transparent : 
the lark’s song has nothing in common with 
it. Neither were the songs of the many bobo- 
links in the meadow at all confusing—a brief 
tinkle of silver bells in the grass while I was 
listening for a sound like the sharp, continuous 
hum and rush of silver wheels upon pebbles and 
gravel. Certain notes of the red-shouldered 
starlings in the alders and swamp maples near 
by, the distant strong call of the great crested 
fly-catcher, the jingle of the kingbird, the shrill, 
metallic song of the savanna sparrow, and 
the piercing call of the meadow lark, all stood 
more or less in the way of the strain I was 
listening for, because every one had a touch of 
that burr or guttural hum of the lark’s song. 
The ear had still other notes to contend with, 
as the strong, bright warble of the tanager, 
the richer and more melodious strain of the 
rose-breasted grosbeak, the distant brief and 
emphatic song of the chewink, the child-like 
contented warble of the -red-eyed vireo, the 
animated strain of the goldfinch, the softly 
ringing notes of the bush-sparrow, the rapid, 
circling, vivacious strain of the purple finch, 
the gentle lullaby of the song-sparrow, the 
pleasing “wichery,” “wichery” of the yel- 
low-throat, the strong whistle of the oriole, 
the loud call of the high-hole, the squeak and 
chatter of swallows, etc. But when the lark 
did rise in full song, it was easy to hear him 
athwart all these various sounds, first, be- 
cause of the sense of altitude his strain had,— 
its skyward character,—and then because of its 
loud, aspirated, penetrating, unceasing, jubi- 
lant quality. It cut its way to the ear like 
something: exceeding swift, sharp, and copi- 
ous. It overtook and outran every other 
sound ; it had an under-tone like the hum- 
ming of multitudinous wheels and spindles. 
Now and then some turn would start and set 
off a new combination of shriller or of graver 
notes, but all of the same precipitate, out- 
rushing, and down-pouring character; not, on 
the whole, a sweet or melodious song, but a 
strong and blithe one. 
The Duke is abundantly justified in saying 
that we have no bird in this country, at least 
east of the Mississippi, that can fill the place 
of the sky-lark. Our high, wide, bright skies 
seem his proper field, too. His song is a pure 
ecstasy, untouched by any plaintiveness, or 
pride, or mere hilarity—a well-spring of morn- 
ing joy and blitheness set high above the 
fields and downs. Its effect is well suggested 
in this stanza of Wordsworth: 
“Up with me, up with me, into the clouds! 
For thy song, lark, is strong; 
Up with me, up with me, into the clouds! 
Singing, singing, 
With all the heavens about thee ringing, 
Lift me, guide me, till I find 
That spot which seems so to.thy mind! ”’ 
Oui 
ae 
