, is very suggestive of the English
skylark, as it figures in the books, and is, no doubt, fully its equal
as a songster.
Of our small wood-birds we have three varieties east of the
Mississippi, closely related to each other, which I have already
spoken of, and which walk, and sing, more or less, on the wing, namely
the two species of water-thrush or wagtails, and the oven-bird or
wood-wagtail. The latter is the most common, and few observers of the
birds can have failed to notice its easy, gliding walk. Its other lark
trait, namely singing in the air, seems not to have been observed by
any other naturalist. Yet it is a well-established characteristic, and
may be verified by any person who will spend a half hour in the woods
where this bird abounds on some June afternoon or evening. I hear it
very frequently after sundown, when the ecstatic singer can hardly be
distinguished against the sky. I know of a high, bald-top mountain
where I have sat late in the afternoon and heard them as often as one
every minute. Sometimes the bird would be far below me, sometimes near
at hand; and very frequently the singer would be hovering a hundred
feet above the summit.
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