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The birds that live in trees are remarkable for their brilliant plumage; those that live upon the ground and in the shrubbery are plainly dressed. This is a provision of Nature for their protection, as the ground-birds must have a predominance of tints that resemble the general hues of the surface of the earth.
The ground-birds began building, and at four each morning awoke Annie with their sylvan opera. The creek that ran just at the north of the house worked itself into a fury and blustered along with much noise toward the great Platte which, miles away, wallowed in its vast sandy bed.
There is something irregular and fantastic in the coloring, also, of the Chewink: unlike the generality of ground-birds, it is a showy thing, with black, white, and bay intermingled, and it is one of the most unmistakable of all our feathery creatures, in its aspect and its ways.
She missed the bluebirds from the cornfield, and the yellow-birds from the flax; she missed the meadow-larks from the lawns, and the quails from the oats and wheat; she missed the bobolinks from the hayfields, and the jays from the girdling; she missed the ground-birds from the pastures, and thrushes and sweet swamp-robins from the woods; and the poor girl wandered about for months very sad and lonely, singing no songs and sharing no delights.
It is commonly noticed, in the same way, that ground-birds have more neutral tints than those which build out of reach. With the aid of these advantages, it is astonishing how well these roving creatures keep their secrets, and what sharp eyes are needed to spy out their habitations, while it always seems as if the empty last-year's nests were very plenty.
The larks are ground-birds when they perch, and sky-birds when they sing; from the turf to the clouds nothing between. Our horned lark mounts upward on quivering wing in the true lark fashion, and, spread out against the sky at an altitude of two or three hundred feet, hovers and sings.
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