THE REDBREAST THRENODY 



persuade ourselves that this harmony between bird 

 and season is mere coincidence. 



Pathos and pensiveness are more noticeable in 

 the song of a robin than in that of any other English 

 bird ; probably no singing bird in the world equals 

 the robin in these qualities, though plenty of birds 

 equal him in sweetness, surpass him in variety, 

 power, and richness. 



These two characteristic qualities in the robin's 

 threnody happen to be just those which we associate 

 with the fall of the year. They are worked into the 

 tissue of the season, and though there are autumn 

 hours of exhilaration, particularly in the morning 

 during passages of brilliant sunshine they touch 

 almost everybody. If it is sentimental to talk or 

 think of the autumn so, it is human nature. The 

 pensiveness in the robin's song is a much rarer 

 strain in bird music than the pathos ; there are 

 several English birds with songs tinged by pathos, 

 the nightingale and the willow warbler, for instance. 

 The pensiveness seems to be achieved by the way 

 in which the robin dwells on several passages in 

 his song, performing them with slow care, with 

 deliberation. 



But I am not sure whether, even apart from this 

 exquisite fitness between song and season, the robin 

 ought not to be described as the autumn songster. 

 Does he really sing so much at any other season ? 

 or, if he does, are there, at another season than 

 autumn, so many robins singing ? I doubt it. On 

 a darkening October afternoon, we may stand for a 



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