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is very little inferior to that of the nightingale, except in variety of notes. On the first arrival of this bird, it feeds greedily on ivy berries; but forsakes that food as soon as the vernal sun has roused the insect tribe."*

Mr. Selby says it is fond of raspberries and red currants. This little bird may easily be known from all others by his quaker grey dress, and his quaker-like habit of always wearing his hat on! "The blackcap," says Mr. White," has in common a full, sweet, deep, and loud pipe; yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory: but when the bird sits calmly, and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and gentle modulations. Blackcaps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble, their throats are wonderfully distended."

Mr. Sweet says, "It is a real mock bird, and will catch the note of any bird that it happens to hear sing. I have heard it," says he, "imitate the nightingale so exactly, that it has deceived me; also the blackbird, thrush, and the greater pettychaps, all of which it imitates so much in its voice that it is almost impossible to detect it, except when it runs from one into

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The three last are, perhaps, the most distinguished songsters among our summer visitants; there are yet about fifteen others, and all and each well worth the attention of those who feel an interest in these beautiful and elegant strangers. As several are, however, of comparatively rare occurrence, or confined to particular places, we will but give a cursory glance at them. One or two will merit a more particular attention.

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Our readers (if they ever mark "the wildbird's note") must have listened to one little songster who often carols forth his sweet and swelling song at a time when almost all others are silent in the mid-day heat of sultry sumThe' cattle, reposing in the shade, chew the cud,the tuneful minstrels of the morning and the evening have forgotten their lay,—and all nature seems silent and at rest; - then the little grey-coated Whitethroat pours forth, at intervals, from the hedges around our gardens and dwellings, his song+; sometimes cheerful,

* British Warblers.

†The whitethroats, on some sunny day in April, are often heard in almost every plantation or coppice, though none were to be seen the day before; their note is a sign many other songsters are arrived.

hurried, and swelling into apparent exertion, and then softening into a plaintive close. The monotonous yellow bunting alone responds to him: sitting on the top of some thorn by the road-side or dusty hedge, covered with the traveller's joy, he repeats his well-known three melancholy notes.

*

It is singular how some well-known sound, — even the song of this little bird,-associated with remembrances of other scenes and times, will awaken long trains of thought in the minds of men. We remember, a few years since, under circumstances of some depression, alone in a sultry day, (when walking between the Hague and the village of Scheveling, on the bleak shores of Holland,) hearing unexpectedly the song of this warbler of home; and the note brought back in a moment, clear as a mirror to the mind's cherished scenes eye, across the waters, and the forms and voices of those who

The cow-boys, according to Mr. Main, have, from their own feelings, composed words to his short song: "A little bit of bread, but no cheese."

Mag. of Nat. Hist.

Mr. Knapp writes us word they have a more gallant version in Gloucestershire, and believes it addressed by the cock bird to his mate as follows,

"Pretty! pretty! pretty! pretty, cre-ature."

gave them value. And once at Rome, amid the magnificent but melancholy ruins of the Colosseum, at noon, when no cloud shadowed the deep blue sky, when all other voices were silent, from the shrubs of that vast amphitheatre this English warbler suddenly poured forth his song, awakening a thousand recollections of the land of the free, and calling forth in strong contrast her noble institutions, and energetic people, and continual improvements, with the degraded creeping slaves of bigotry and despotism, sinking each day lower and lower in the scale of existence, as the malaria and the moral pest of ignorance encompass closer their decayed and devoted city.

"The whitethroat," says Mr. Selby, "possesses a pleasing, but cursory song, frequently uttered upon the wing, as it rises from the spray upon which it has been perched to a considerable height in the air, and descends slowly to the same spot from whence it had taken its departure." This little warbler is one of the most common of our summer visitants, found in the thickets and hedges, and is frequent in gardens among the fruit bushes. It has the provincial name of nettle-creeper, from its often being seen among nettles, brambles, and other

* Selby's British Birds.

coarse herbage; where, creeping amid the stems, it gathers its insect food, "and is also called by rustic observers, Peggy, wheetie why bird, muff, Charlie mufti, haytit, &c."* The nest is very slight, of goosegrass or cleavers, and placed in some low bush.†

Mr. Sweet discovered a mode of preserving this and other soft-billed warblers in good health and song through the winter. His account will be read with great pleasure by any one fond of birds. He says (in speaking of the whitethroat): "One that I at present possess will sing for hours together against a nightingale, now, in the beginning of January, and it will not suffer itself to be outdone: when the nightingale raises its voice, it also does the same, and tries its uttermost to get above it. Sometimes in the midst of its song it will run up to the nightingale, and stretch out its neck as if in defiance, and whistle as loud as it can, staring it in the face. If the nightingale attempts to peck it, away it is in an instant, flying round the aviary, and singing all the time.”‡

Mr. Bewick remarks, what we have frequently observed, that it is often heard, in the midst

* Architecture of Birds.

† An interesting description of the nest is given in Mr. Rennie's work on the Architecture of Birds.

British Warblers.

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