File:News from the birds (1898) (14747381581).jpg

Identifier: newsfrombirds00key (find matches)
Title: News from the birds
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Keyser, Leander Sylvester, 1856-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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o the earth. Then he sweeps down-ward, closing his song only when he has reachedthe ground. It is a wTonderful performance.No wonder it is said that he haunts the sky !No wonder the poets have gone into rhapsodiesover his welkin song ! It would be difficult togive a description of the minstrelsy. It ismade up of a variety of sweet notes which, areuttered in quick succession, the bird keepingtime by the vibrations of its wings. It has often been said that America has nobird whose song will compare with that of theEnglish skylark as it rises far up into the ether.Of course no one wants to say a disparagingword about the British bird, and as to thequality of his song in comparison with themusic of some of our own birds I am unableto say anything. But, be that as it may, thereare birds in America which mount far upalmost, if not quite, beyond the reach of theeye, and sing with a haunting sweetness.Shall I tell you about one of these birds ? Itsproper name is Spragues pipit, although it is
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European skylark. 64 NEWS FROM THE BIRDS. sometimes called the Missouri skylark or tit-lark ; but it seems that the name titlark, onceapplied to several species of birds, is now aban-doned, and pipit n is being used. The birdof which I speak dwells on the prairies andplains of our Middle States, breeding fromCentral Dakota and Minnesota nortlrward.There are those who contend that its song isnot inferior to that of the far-famed Europeanskylark. A writer in Minnesota gives a thrilling ac-count of an occasion on which he heard theaerial song and witnessed the upward flight ofthis bird. He was riding along a country roadwith a friend, when he saw a bird spring fromthe grass within a few feet of his horse. Itflew a hundred feet away with a succession offlits of the wings which lifted it perhapstwenty feet into the air, then it turned andflew back toward him in the same wray, againmounting up about the same distance as before.At that point it began to sing with great power,and thus it clim

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