NATURAL HISTORY OF SKIBORNE. 137 



the birds that were to be remarked, and, as I rode or walked 

 aoout my business, I noted each day the continuance or omission 

 or each bird's song ; so that I am as sure of the certainty of my 

 facts as a man can be of any transaction whatsoever. 



I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you 

 put in your two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am able. 

 Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where you heard so very few 

 birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not stocked with 

 such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, 

 you will find that many species continued to warble after the 

 beginning of July. 



The titlark and yellow-hammer breed late, the 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 sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, 

 and the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, 

 they would require more nice and curious management in a cage 

 than 1 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 It : " 



"And tune his merry note 

 Unto the -wild bird's throat." SHAKESPEARE. 



The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the song 

 of several other birds ; but then it has also a hurrying manner, 

 not at all to its advantage : 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 there are to be 

 seen much fewer birds in July than in any former month, not 



