BLACK-CAPPED WARBLER. 343 



congeners, and indeed it is much more frequently heard than 

 seen. If, however, you will sit upon a mossy bank, shaded 

 with bushes and trees, near the spot from which the song pro- 

 ceeds, it will not be long before you obtain a sight of him, as, 

 when undisturbed, he generally sings on rather a conspicuous 

 station, at the top of a tree. But if you approach incautiously 

 or hastily, it instantly darts down into the midst of the thickest 

 brake the spot affords, where it will patiently wait your de- 

 parture. In the meanwhile, however, for the sake of employ- 

 ment, it will renew its strains, even though you be standing 

 within a few yards of it." 



These descriptions are accurate, and yet after reading them, 

 you will be surprised when, under favourable circumstances, 

 you hear the bird pouring forth its rich strain from its perch 

 on some tree by the edge of a wood. It is a sunny day in the 

 middle of June ; the foliage of the trees is now expanded and 

 the woods exhibit tufted masses of fresh green of various shades, 

 that of the ash alone, as if fearful of the lingering colds, being 

 yet scanty and pale. Let us skirt the plantation, although at 

 this season there is not much chance of observing many birds, 

 as their duty calls them away in quest of food for their young, 

 and those that remain are concealed by the clustered leaves. 

 Listen to those strains that issue from the midst of that broad 

 plane-tree, so loud, so clear, so melodious, so modulated, so sur- 

 passingly beautiful, if one may so speak, that surely no bird 

 ever sang so sweetly. It is a Thrush, I know it by that pecu- 

 liar inflection : yet no, it cannot be, for the sounds are not quite 

 so loud, nor is the strain so broken. The notes follow each 

 other with rapidity, now the enunciation is hurried, anon de- 

 liberate, but always distinct, and neither strained not slurred by 

 haste. You fancy that parts of the song resemble that of the 

 Redbreast, the Garden Warbler, the Song Thrush, and per- 

 haps the Sky Lark ; or that it is a graceful and harmonious 

 combination of the songs of these and perhaps other birds ; yet 

 if you listen more attentively you will be persuaded that the 

 bird is no imitator, but that it sends forth in gladness the spon- 

 taneous, unpremeditated, and unborrowed strains that nature 

 has taught it to emit as the expression of its feelings. The 



