Vrence of their notes on the mind of an rvaoften becu noticed. Mrs Graham this writes ference to them :-

bed last summer, und le to speak or

ars in the way, the song of the birds an inexhaustible source of art in

feel gateral to the urlded me of holf my pain, of sickness fly away up s

As if led by an instinctive of blaburds and thrushes came to ur garden; and the woodensnt the year before, renewed the hith trees by the parsonage lawn. and I thought myself fortu~ in the day the gentle cool

ed..

"But there was one thrush, whose notes I soon learned to distinguish from all the other thrushes. Every morning I listened for his voice, which was sure to precede the matins of all the other birds. In the daytime, his brilliant tones were mingled and almost lost in the general melody; but as soon as the sun was preparing to set, when the blackbirds had either sung themselves to sleep, or were flown off to keep their festivals elsewhere, then was my thrush's practising time. He was kind enough to select a tree not far from my window, while the other thrushes placed themselves at a respectful distance, and edged in a note here and there as they could. He opened the rehearsal with a number of wild trills and calls, which I could not well understand, only they were very sweet and cheering to me; and he would pause between each, till a soft response was heard from some distant bough. But when he had fixed upon a little cadence which pleased him, it became a more serious business. Strange to say, I could always tell when this would be; for what pleased me particularly was sure to please him: so true it is that Nature has given the same perception of melody to man and birds. He would chant it over in a low tone two or three times, as if to make himself sure of it; then he carolled it out with triumphant glee; then stopped short

on a sudden, as much as to say to his rivals, 'Which of you can imitate my strains?'

"Their notes sounded most sweet at various distances during these little intervals; but they seemed conscious of their inferiority to my favourite, who would suddenly break out into the same melody, upon which he had doubtless been musing all the while, enriching it by some little note or trill, the wildest and most touching that ever came into a thrush's heart. I needed neither concert nor music-master while I could listen to the untaught, but not unpremeditated harmony of this original professor: nor could I quarrel with the sickness, which had been the means of developing another link in that mysterious chain which binds me to the rest of creation, by opening my ear and my heart more than ever to the language of universal Nature."