LIN ARIA CANABINA. 413 



the larger end. The first brood fly in May. In winter they 

 assemble in flocks, and seek near the sea ; feed on stubble-fields 

 and farm yards for grain or seeds. Easily tamed, their song is 

 varied and sweet — more attractive in the house than on the 

 hillside, where it is drowned by the louder notes of the black- 

 bird, the mavis, and the lark. Wordsworth truly says — 



" The. linnet and the thrush 

 Vied with the waterfall, and made a song 

 Which, whde I listened, seemed like the wild growth, 

 Or like some natural produce of the air 

 That could not cease to be." 



The only time that linnets assert themselves as songsters is 

 when, late in autumn, a hundred or so collect and hold a concert 

 on some old plane or elm tree when the weather is fine — when 

 their united song beats all I have heard in bird singing, for all 

 our other song birds are solo songsters. Even in winter these 

 surprising concerts are sometimes heard. It is an old saying 

 with country people, "It will be a bad day the morn, thae 

 linties are singin' ower weel." Burns couples the lintie's sang 

 with the genius of the Nith — 



" As on the banks o' wandering Nith 



Ae smiling summer morn I strayed, 

 And traced its bonnie howes and haughs 



Where linties sang and lambkins play'd : 

 I sat me down upon a craig, 



And drank my fill o' fancy's dream, 

 When from the eddying deep below 



Uprose the genius of the stream." 



In his " Eosebud by my Early Walk," how correctly he sings — 



" Within the bush, her covert nest 

 A little linnet fondly prest ; 

 The dew sat chilly on her breast 



Sae early in the morning. 

 She soon shall see her tender brood 

 Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd 



Awake the early morning." 



It is singular although Shakespeare often introduces the lark, 

 he never once mentions the linnet ; eagles, falcons, hawks, 

 ravens, crows, buzzards, and kites are more in his dramatic line, 

 while such birds as doves are merely introduced as foils to 

 them. For instance — 



" But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall 

 To make oppression bitter; or ere this 

 I should have fatted all the region kites 

 With this slave's offal"— 



meaning the King of Denmark. 



