THE RING-OUZEL AS A SONGSTER 135 



incredible considering the number of books on birds 

 which we possess ; but let any reader take down one 

 from his shelves and try to form a definite idea as to 

 what this song is like from the author's account. Some 

 naturalists compare it with the blackbird and missel- 

 thrush. It is unlike both, being a short set song, as 

 in the chaffinch and chifTchaff, without any variation 

 and alike in every individual ; whereas the blackbird 

 and missel-thrush vary their phrases with every re- 

 petition of the song, and no two individuals sing quite 

 alike. In the quality of the sound there is also some 

 difference. Again, it is frequently described as a 

 warble, or warbled song, which it is not. The word 

 warble, as Mr. Warde Fowler has said, is used of birds' 

 singing in a sense which may be guessed from Milton's 

 lines : 



Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow 

 Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. 



" The word," he adds, *' seems to express a kind of 

 singing which is soft, continuous, and legato." It is 

 precisely because they sing in this way that several of 

 our smaller songsters, including the blackcap and 

 willow-wren, have received the English generic name 

 of Warblers. 



The song is also variously characterised as desultory, 

 wild, monotonous, sweet, plaintive, mellow, fluty, 

 which is all wrong, and if by chance one word had been 

 right it would have given us no definite idea of the 

 ring-ouzel's song — its shape. It is a whistle, repeated 



