154 NATURAL HISTORY 
latter very late; and therefore it is no wonder that 
they protract their song: for I lay it down as a 
maxim in ornithology, that, as long as there is any 
incubation going on, there is music. As to the 
redbreast and wren, it is well known to the most 
incurious observer that they whistle the year round, 
hard frost excepted, especially the latter. 
It was not in my power to procure you a black- 
cap, or a less reed-sparrow, or sedgebird alive. As 
the first is undoubtedly, and the last as far as I can 
yet see, a summer bird of passage, they would re- 
quire more nice and curious management in a cage 
than I should be able to give them: they are both 
distinguished songsters. ‘The note of the former 
has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to 
my mind those lines in a song in “As You Like 
Nias 
‘¢ And tune his merry note 
Unto the wild bird’s throat.”—SH«KsPEARE. 
The latter has a surprising variety of notes, resem- 
bling the song of several other birds; but then it 
has also a hurrying manner, not at all to its advan- 
tage. It is, notwithstanding, a delicate polyglot. 
It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the 
night; perhaps only caged birds do so. I once 
knew a tame redbreast in a cage that always sang 
as long as candles were in the room; but in their 
wild state no one supposes they sing in the night. 
I should be almost ready to doubt the fact that 
here are to be seen much fewer birds in July than 
in any former month, notwithstanding so many 
young are hatched daily. Sure I am that it is far 
otherwise with respect to the Swallow tribe, which 
increases prodigiously as the summer advances ; 
