Morning journal and courier., 1883-05-15
Drayton hits it when he says:

A thrush of Eauch mellower strain is the blackbird, which is our robin cut in ebony. ! His golden bill gives golden touch to his ! song. It was the most leisurely strain | heard Amid the loud, vivacious. workaday | chorus it had an easeful, dolce far niente ef- 1 feet. place the song before that of our
 robin, where it belongs in quality, but if l falls short in other respects.
 ! I could well understand, after being in l England for 6 few days, why to English tray | elers our songsters seem inferior to their own.- They are much less loud and voeife- l rous, less abundant and familiar; one needs ! to WOO them more they are less recently ! out of the wilderness :; their songs have the I delieacy and wildness of the most woodsey forms, and are as plaintive as the whistle of the wind. They are not so happy race as 1 the English songsters, as if life had more 1 trials for them, as doubtless it has in their 1 enforced migrations, and in the severer eli 1 mate with which they have to contend When one hears the European cuckoo he regrets that he has ever heard a cuckoo clock. The clock has stolen the birds thun- der and when you hear the rightfnl owner the note has secondhand, artificial sound. It Is only another cuckoo clock off there on the hill or in the grove. It is a cheerful call, with none of the solitary and monkiah char aeter of our cuckoo's note and, as 1t comes
 early in the spring, can see how much it must mean to native ears.
 The most melcdious strain heard and the only one that exhibited to the full the best qualities of the American songsters, proceed, ed from bird quite unknown to fame, in the British Islands at least. I refer to the willow warbler, or willow wren it is called Sylvia TrochilLs), little brown bird that builds dome shaped nest upon the ground, and lines it with feathers. White says 1t has
 a ''sweet, plaintiff note, which is but half the truth. It has long, tender, delicious
 warbIe, not wanting in strength and volume, but eminently pure end sweet-the song of the chRffinch refined and idealized. I heard
 the bird everywhere; next to the chafhnch it's song greeted my ear oftenest yet many country people of whem I inquired did not
 know the bird, or confounded it with some
 other. It is too fine song for the ordinary English ear; there is not noise enough in it.
 The white throat is much more famous; it
 has louder, coarser voice; 1t sings with
 great emphasis and assurance, and is a much
 better John Bull than the little willow war
 bier.
 The English robin is better songster than
 I expected to find him. The poets and wri-
 ters have not done him justice. He is of the
 royal line of the nightingale, and inherits
 some of the qualities of that famous bird.
 His favorite hour for singing is tho gloam
 ing, and I used to hear him the last of all.
 His song is peculiar, jerky and spasmodic,
 but ebounda in the purest and most piercing
 
 smoothness, intensity and fullness of articula- tion rapid and crowded at one moment, as if something had suddenly given way, then as suddenly pausing and scintillating at in-
 tervals bright, tapering shafts of sound
 The green finch or linnet is an abundant
 bird every where, but it's song is less pleasing than that of several of our inches. The goldfinch is very rare, mainly perhaps De- cause it is so consistently trapped by bird fenciers it's song is series of twitters and chirps, less musical to my ear than that of our goldfnch, especially when flock of the latter are congregated in 9 tree and inhating their threats in rivalry. The nuthatch has not the soft, clear call of ours, and the vari- ous woedpeckers figure much less {; there Is less wood to peck, and they seem g more shy and silent race. I saw but one in all my walks, and that was near Wolmer forest.
 The common sandpiper, should say, was moro loquacious and musical than ours. heard it on the Highland lakes, when it's happy notes did indeed almost run into 8 song, so continuous and bright and joyful were they.
 Nearly all the British bird voices have more of a burr in them than ours have. Can 1t be that, like the people, they speak more from the throat 1t is especially noticeable in the crow tribe-in the rook the jay, the jack daw The common crow, or TOOK, has a hoarse, thick caw-not so clearly and round ly uttered as that of our crow. The swift has wheezy catarrhal squeak, in marked contrast to the cheery chiPper of our swift In Europe the chimney swallow builds in barns. and the barn swallow builds in chim- news. The barn swallow, as we would call it swallow, as it is called there-is much the same in voice, color, form, flight, etc |. as our bird, while the swift is much lar ger than our chimney swallow, and has a forked tail. The martlet, answering to our cliff swallow, is not so strong and ruddy a looking bird as our species, but it builds much the same and has similar note. It is more plentiful than our swallow. I was soon struck with the fact that in the main | the British song birds lead up to and culmi- | nate ia two species-namely, in the lark and | the nightingale. In these two birds all that l is characteristic in the other songsters is gathered up and carried to perfection.
 Hound that had overestimated the bird music to be heard in England in mid-sum- mer. It appeared to be much less than our own. The last two or three weeks of July were very silent the only bird was sure of hearing in my walks was the ysllew-hammer !; while, on returning home early in August, the birds made such music about my house that they woke me up in the morning. The song sparrow and bush sparrow were notice able till in September, and the red eyed vireo and warbling vireo were heard daily till in October.