408 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, h^c. 



in either case, I had at least a song for my pains. (1.) I must 

 ask you to imagine a very hot April afternoon, heated by an 

 Italian in place of an English sun. The steep hill-side on which 

 T am affords shade and sunlight, moist places, and baked and 

 crumbling earth. We have here no beech-leaves, blue-bells, or 

 wood-anemonies, but, instead, fir-needles, brown serapias lolling 

 out thirsty tongues, gaunt limodorums, leafless and straight, 

 and on the shady banks graceful creamy-white orchises {Orchis 

 provincialis) with their purple-spotted leaves prostrate in adora- 

 tion. I, too, am dreamily filled with a vague reverence, and, 

 while engaged in an attempt to adjust the respective claims of 

 sun-lovers and shade-lovers among plants, am startled by a call- 

 note ringing out from the misty grey of the olive-trees above 

 me. Soon a conversation is established, and chattering and gur- 

 gling bird-voices question and respond ; and while I am creeping 

 forward, rich-toned throats send out their great thankful roll, 

 which, with a much added volume, has the beauty of those 

 few notes given out by a Thrush before the song overpowers 

 him, and his utterance is choked with the rapidity of varying 

 melody. The display is but limited, and soon they perceive 

 danger, and one by one slink away through the tree-tops, vanish- 

 ing so cleverly that I only get one glimpse of the flashing gold 

 and black plumage of the Oriole ! I was very much struck by 

 the foreign ring of their dialect, the sound being rather such as 

 one might expect to reach one from the steamy atmosphere of 

 some tropical thicket tangled with ipom^as, than out of the pale 

 shade of gnarled olive-trees, of which the only permitted encum- 

 brance are the soft green tendrils of some scrambling vine. I may 

 notice here that, during the three winters passed by me at 

 Mentone, I have always remarked the subdued voices of Song- 

 Thrushes and Blackbirds in these parts. They never venture to 

 burst into the free singing so well remembered in our English 

 spring-times. I suppose they fear the presence of the chasseur, 

 and dare not utter their devotions above their breath, unless, in- 

 deed, they may perhaps find solitude in some mountain pine-wood 

 where they may fly and sing in safety, as in the fastnesses of the 

 wild rocks the persecuted Rock-Thrush pours out a wild thanks- 

 giving, free and unrestrained. (2.) Once more, I should like to 



