204 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



I have gone into these details just to show that it 

 would be easy to give this bird a better chance of 

 increasing its numbers by inducing the owners of 

 withy beds where they are known to breed to do 

 the mowing at the end of May instead of in the 

 middle of June or later. This could be best done 

 by local bird-protecting societies in Gloucestershire 

 and Somerset and in other counties where colonies 

 may be found. 



Certainly no sweet songster in Britain is better 

 worth preserving than the marsh warbler. I should 

 class it as one of our four greatest — blackbird, night- 

 ingale, skylark, marsh warbler. The blackbird is 

 first because of the beautiful quality of its voice and 

 its expression, due to its human associations. The 

 marsh warbler compared with lark and nightingale 

 has a small voice, which does not carry far, but in 

 sweetness he is the equal of any and in variety excels 

 them all. It could not be otherwise, since he is able 

 to borrow the songs of the others, even of the best. 



He is 



That cheerful one who knoweth all 

 The songs of all the winged choristers, 

 And in one sequence of melodious sound 

 Pours all their music. 



Thus wrote Southey of the American bird in one of 

 the very few quotable passages in the vast volume of 

 his numerous epics : his three or four happy lines are 

 worth more, as giving the bird its characteristic 

 expression, than all the verses of the transatlantic 

 poets on the subject. 



The mocking-bird, I may say here, is a powerful 



