97 



CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMON BIRD; 



BY O. S. ROtJND, ESQ. 



Solitude is the parent of contemplation, without which notT 

 depends upon observation merely can produce a lasting or accurate impres- 

 sion on the mind; and this applies with the greatest force to objects 

 constantly before us, and which, from their very ftimiliarity, require an 

 exertion of the mental facultiea to think about, before they can be fully 

 understood. Now, in my lonely wanderings on the moor or in the covert, 

 I have often been led to make this remark to myself, and as often felt 

 a great satisfaction in the reflection, how great a field there was for 

 the luxury of uninterrupted thought to be found in the great storehouses 

 of nature. The observations I have been thus led into were of two 

 classes, the agreeable or amusive, and those which partook of freedom of 

 range. 



As I watched the motions of the newly-arrived summer visitants, it was 

 with no small interest that I considered the journey they had lately made 

 to come to us; they always seemed to me to be endowed with a certain 

 degree of novelty and freshness; and the wild laughing notes of the Willow 

 Wrens, and the full song of the Blackcap or Whitethi-oat, heard amidst 

 the bright beams and bright green of a really May day, were always very 

 refreshing to me. Association, no doubt, has a good deal to do with this, 

 for, call to mind a bitter day, as May too often shews in our country, 

 and fancy one of these pretty creatures hanging amidst the scarcely-leaved 

 boughs of a birch tree, and the reminiscence will probably have something 

 chilling in it, rather than enlivening. I suppose that these gentry are tired 

 with their journey, however flittingly it may have been performed; at all events, 

 it is some time before they are troubled with domestic cares; as to the Cuckoo, 

 as is notorious, he disdains them altogether, and thoroughly enjoys himself 

 like a real gentleman, seeming to consider that the sunshine was made 

 specially for him, and all bird-kind as the nurses of his scattered offspring. 



If the weather be unpropitious and the spring backward, so that we say 

 ''When will warm weather come?" it is very curious to observe how silent 

 we are, no Chiff-chaffing, (although, by the way, this lively little fellow 

 does sing in the cold weather sometimes,) at all events, little general sum- 

 mer music; but let a really hot morning come upon us suddenly, and what 

 a chorus there is; to use a common phrase, it is quite 'stunning.' How 

 my Lord Chaffinch revels on the leader of the tall fir. Greenfinches chirrup 

 away amongst the garden hedges, the Lark carols above the mist, and every 

 tiny throat proclaims the presence of songster upon songster, here, there, 

 and everywhere. It is a charming thing to listen to. 



VOL. VI. o 



