A riRKl) FRAVKl.LKR 97 



images nnd associations connected with this species. It 

 is true that he is a sweet sinjjjcr, the "Swedish ni^Mit- 

 in[,'alc" of Linnreus, hut he only sinp^s his full song 

 with the louder notes at home, in summer, in the distant 

 nnrtli; and on this account those dreariest Philistines, 

 the bird fanciers or "avicultiirists," as they are begin- 

 ning to call themselves, who love a bird only when they 

 hold it in the hateful cage, the most iniquitous of man's 

 many inventions, have so far neglected this tiirush. All 

 the images called up by the redwing, the sight or sound 

 or thought of him, are of rural winter scenes, and are 

 pleasing, especially those of the evening gatherings of 

 redwings in. copse or shnibbery ; for, like the linnet and 

 starling, they love to hold a kind of concert, or grand 

 musical confabulation or corroboree, in which all the 

 birds chirp, twitter and scream together before settling 

 down to sleep in the evergreens, which look black in 

 tlic twilight against the luminous evening sky. In my 

 case there are still other associations, for it happens that 

 the soft musical chirp of the redwing reminds mc vividly 

 of other birds which have a sound resembling it, birds 

 that* were dear to me in my boyhood and youth ; one 

 a true thrush, anotlier the social military starling of 

 the grassy pampas and Patagonia. That dark bird with 

 the scarlet breast and beautiful voice was to me, in winter 

 time in that distant land, what the redwing is to many 

 an English boy. 



Now as I rested there against the pile of brushwood 

 on which he sat so near me he continued to emit these 

 soft low chirping notes or little drops of musical sound; 



