h; we see
them stream across the heavens, or hear their _clang_ in the night; but
these minstrels of the field and forest add to their other charms a
shade of mystery, and pique the imagination by their invisible and
unknown journeyings. To be sure, we know they follow the opening season
north and the retreating summer south; but who will point to the
parallels that mark the limits of their wandering, or take us to their
most secret haunts?

What greater marvel than this simple gift of music? What beside birds
and the human species sing? It is the crowning gift; through it the
field and forest are justified. Nature said, "These rude forms and
forces must have a spokesman of their own nursing; here are flowers and
odor, let there be music also." I suspect the subtile spirit of the
meadow took form in the Bobolink, that the high pasture-lands begot the
Vesper-Sparrow, and that from the imprisoned sense and harmony of the
forests sprang the Wood-Thrush.

From the life of birds being on a more intense and vehement scale than
that of other animals result their musical gifts and their holiday
expression of joy. How restless and curious they are! Their poise and
attitudes, how various, rapid, and graceful! They are a study for an
artist, especially as exhibited in the Warblers and Flycatchers: their
looks of alarm, of curiosity, of repose, of watchfulness, of joy, so
obvious and expressive, yet as impossible of reproduction as their
music. Even if the naturalist were to succeed in imparting all their
wild extravagances of poise and motion to their inanimate forms, his
birds, to say the least, would have a very theatrical or melodramatic
aspect, and seem unreal in proportion to their fidelity to Nature. I
have seen a Blue Jay alone, saluting and admiring himself in the mirror
of a little pool of water from a low overhanging branch, assume so many
graceful, novel, as well as ridiculous and fantastic attitudes, as would
make a taxidermist run mad to attempt to reproduce; and the rich medley
of notes he poured forth at the same time--chirping, warbling, cooing,
whistling, chattering, revealing rare musical and imitative
powers--would have been an equally severe test to the composer who
should have aspired to report them; and the indignant air of outraged
privacy he assumed, on finding himself discovered, together with his
loud, angry protest, as, with crown depressed and plumage furled, he
rapidly ascended to the topmost branch