174 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



song. But the song, or rather songs, of the stonechat 

 are known to few persons, owing to the fact that this 

 bird is intolerant of the presence of a human being 

 near him. Heard at a considerable distance, the lower 

 notes in the song of the furze-wren are lost, and the 

 sound that reaches the ear might be taken for a stone- 

 chat, or linnet, or dunnock, or even a pipit. The white- 

 throat, heard in the same localities, has a louder, coarser 

 song, which is not much softened or etherealised by- 

 distance. The whitethroat's girding or chiding note is 

 familiar to every one; the chiding note of the furze- 

 wren is like the same note subdued and softened. It 

 is this same chiding or scolding note which is used in 

 singing, only louder and more musical and uttered with 

 such extraordinary rapidity that the note may be re- 

 peated eighteen or twenty times in three seconds of time. 

 The most hurried singing of the sedge-warbler seems 

 an almost languid performance in comparison. This 

 rapid utterance produces the effect of a continuous or 

 sustained sound, like the reeling of the grasshopper- 

 warbler; the character of the sound is, however, not the 

 same; it is rather like a buzzing or droning, as of a 

 stag beetle or cockchafer in flight, only with a slightly 

 metallic and musical quality added. This buzzing stream 

 of sound is interspersed with small, fine, bright, clear 

 notes, both shrill and mellow. Some of these are very 

 pure and beautiful. 



Meredith says of the lark's song that it is a 



silver chain of sound 

 Of many links, without a break. 



