As for the smaller birds, humming birds, kinglets, vireos, and warblers, the trees of any city yard will be a frequented hostelry for all during their wonderful journeys, and for many as a summer home. Those that love the tree tops are seen all the better by human inhabitants of upper stories, and some of our most charming bird-books give us the experiences of a busy woman in a New York flat, or of another in a Chicago back yard, and of more than one invalid, watching these free, joyous lives with unenvious delight. A good glass, either opera-glass or field-glass, will open many a pretty bit of house-weaving, and brood-rearing to an observer shut in by walls and pavements, and bring many a pleasant acquaintance. At this very moment, a slender grey catbird glides through the boughs close by my upper window, with a low _chuck, chuck!_ as I glance at him. He knows I am a friend, but would fain enjoin silence, for a black cat prowls below. THE OVENBIRD--GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH. NELLY HART WOODWORTH. A marvelous choral is the rare ecstasy song of the ovenbird (see Vol. III, 126-7). It was first recorded, at a comparatively recent date, by that versatile writer--poet, essayist, naturalist--Mr. John Burroughs. After speaking of the bird's easy, gliding walk, it being one of the few birds that are _walkers_, not _hoppers_, he says its other lark trait, namely, singing in the air, seems not to have been observed by any 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 frequently after sundown when the ecstatic singer can hardly be distinguished against the sky. Mounting by easy flights to the top of the tallest tree, he launches into the air, with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song--clear, ringing, copious, rivaling the goldfinch's in vivacity and the linnet's in melody. Its descent after the song is finished is rapid, and precisely like that of the titlark when it sweeps down from its course to alight on the ground.