The Gift of Song. 95 



grown with bitter-sweet and iris, where, in the shelter 

 of some low willow bush, his mate and he may weave 

 the fragile nest. The water-rat ploughs a labyrinth of 

 paths through the mantling weed j the rail wanders 

 silently in the hollows under the bank ; even the 

 heron folds at nightfall here his broad grey wings. 



Here, there sounds among the reeds the twitter of a 

 swallow ; then a sparrow chatters in the grass ; among 

 the willow-roots rises a bar or two from even the carol 

 of the lark. That is the sedge-warbler's song ; a quiet 

 strain, subdued and soft like the plain tones of his 

 plumage. 



Most musical birds, indeed, are plainly dressed, and 

 brilliant feathers are rarely associated with the gift of 

 song. 



The parrots, brave in gold and scarlet, green and 

 azure, cannot raise a song among them, unless we 

 dignify by such a name the warbling of the para- 

 keets. 



Perhaps none of all the feathered tribes are more 

 exquisitely tinted than the humming-birds, and yet 

 among some four hundred species there is only one 

 who sings at all. 



Of the Birds of Paradise we know very little. 

 There are species of which only a single specimen has 

 ever been seen by Europeans. Not even the natives 

 of the wild islands of their strange shallow sea know 

 anything of the nest or eggs of any one of the species, 

 But crows they are for all their beauty, and those who 



