160 WOOD NOTES WILD. 



Night Songs. — Contin. 



singers across the water is large and strong enough for 

 broad day. 



"Within one hour, from 11.30 p. m. to 12.30 a. m., I heard the cuckoo, 

 nightingale, thrush, wood-lark, reed-wren, white-throat, willow-wren. Soon 

 after 1 a. m. I heard, in addition to the foregoing, the chaffinch, the wren, 

 and the chiff-chaff; and after two o'clock there was such a general min- 

 gling of voices that it was possible only to distinguish the thrush, cuckoo, 

 chaffinch, and robin, whose utterances are so distinct as to be at all times 

 unmistakable. Far away on the borders of the New Forest, and among 

 the crowded slopes of Herefordshire, I have at night heard the golden 

 oriole, the ring-ousel, the water-ousel, and the gray wag-tail, — the last 

 to be seen as well as heard during moonlight at the midnight hour; 

 but none of these, so far as I know, visit the gardens near London." — 

 Hibberd, S. : Minstrels of the Summer. (Intellectual Observer, vol. ii., Aug., 

 1862, p. 19 ) 



Mocking-bird ot Jamaica. 



" It is in the stillness of the night, when like his European namesake 

 [the nightingale], he delights — 



' With wakeful melody to cheer 

 The livelong hours,' 



that the song of this bird is heard to advantage. Sometimes, when, desirous 

 of watching the first flight of Urania Sloaneus, I have ascended the moun- 

 tains before break of day, I have been charmed by the rich gushes and 

 bursts of melody proceeding from the most sweet songster, as he stood on 

 tiptoe on the topmost twig of some sour-sop or orange-tree, in the rays of 

 the bright moonlight. Now he is answered by another, and now another 

 joins the chorus from the trees around, till the woods and savannahs are 

 ringing with the delightful sounds of exquisite and innocent joy." — Gosse, 

 P. H. : Birds of Jamaica (London, 1847), p. 145. 



Wood Thrush. (See p. 56.) 



" But how much there is to learn ! ^ And I cannot find 

 it in the books. I am more and more astonished that the 



1 " His [the author's] method of work was to ascertain the haunts of 

 the birds whose songs he wished to secure, and to seek them there, some- 



