1/4 Our Bird Friends. 



Young birds spend a great deal of time in learn- 

 ing to sing, and those of such species as the Song 

 Thrush and Blackbird often commence in Sep- 

 tember and October, when their amatfurisli efforts 

 may be easily detected. 



As the spring advances a great improvement 

 is often noticeable in the performances of many 

 vocaUsts that one can keep under observation, and 

 this is hardly to be wondered at when the enormous 

 amount of practice indulged in is taken into con- 

 sideration. The diattiuch, for instance, reiterates 

 his ringing " Sweet, will you will you kiss me, dear :' *' 

 whif'h in some j^arts of the countrv has been ren- 

 (l('rc(l as. • 111 aiiollicr month will romc a wlieat- 

 ear." thousands and thousands of times ever\' day. 

 Song Thrushes, too, spend all the time left after 

 feeding and driving off rivals in repeating their 

 dehghtful songs. Skylarks do not waste much 

 time, especially on a warm spring evening after a 

 shower or two of rain, as I have repeatedly proved 

 by observ.ition. ( )n the evening of the 1st of April 

 of this year I timed a particular member of the 

 species upon my wateli. and the i-esults wei'c as 

 follows: sang thirtv seconds, rested forty-Hve : sano- 

 one hundred and thirty, rested forty ; sang seventy, 

 rested forty ; sang twenty, rested ninety : sang ten, 

 rested ten: sang thirt y-Hve. 



The longest record of a Skylark's song I can find 

 in my notebooks is six minutes and five seconds. 

 The bird went up between seven and eight o'clock 



