t
regularly seized with the fit of ecstasy that results in this lyric
burst in the air, as I described in my first book, "Wake Robin," over
thirty years ago, is the oven-bird, or wood-accentor--the
golden-crowned thrush of the old ornithologists. Every loiterer about
the woods knows this pretty, speckled-breasted, olive-backed little
bird, which walks along over the dry leaves a few yards from him,
moving its head as it walks, like a miniature domestic fowl. Most
birds are very stiff-necked, like the robin, and as they run or hop
upon the ground, carry the head as if it were riveted to the body. Not
so the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the cow-bunting, or
the quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with the movement
of the feet. The sharp, reiterated, almost screeching song of the
oven-bird, as it perches on a limb a few feet from the ground, like
the words, "preacher, preacher, preacher," or "teacher, teacher,
teacher," uttered louder and louder, and repeated six or seven times,
is also familiar to most ears; but its wild, ringing, rapturous burst
of song in the air high above the tree-tops is not so well known. From
a very prosy, tiresome, unmelodious singer, it is suddenly transformed
for a brief moment into a lyric poet of great power. It is a great
surprise. The bird undergoes a complete transformation. Ordinarily it
is a very quiet, demure sort of bird. It walks about over the leaves,
moving its head like a little hen; then perches on a limb a few feet
from the ground and sends forth its shrill, rather prosy, unmusical
chant. Surely it is an ordinary, common-place bird. But wait till the
inspiration of its flight-song is upon it. What a change! Up it goes
through the branches of the trees, leaping from limb to limb, faster
and faster, till it shoots from the tree-tops fifty or more feet into
the air above them, and bursts into an ecstasy of song, rapid,
ringing, lyrical; no more like its habitual performance than a match
is like a rocket; brief but thrilling; emphatic but musical. Having
reached its climax of flight and song, the bird closes its wings and
drops nearly perpendicularly downward like the skylark. If its song
were more prolonged, it would rival the song of that famous bird. The
bird does this many times a day during early June, but oftenest at
twilight. The song in quality and general cast is like that of its
congener, the water-accentor, which, however, I believe is never
deliver