212 BRITISH BIRDS. 



on a sudden, as much as to say to his rivals, * Which of 

 you can imitate my strains ? ' 



" Their notes sounded most sweet at various distances 

 during these httle intervals ; but they seemed conscious 

 of their inferiority to my favourite, who would suddenly 

 break out into the same melody, upon which he had 

 doubtless been musing all the while, enriching it by 

 some little note or trill, the wildest and most touching 

 that ever came into a thrush's heart. I needed neither 

 concert nor music-master while I could listen to the un- 

 taught, but not unpremeditated harmony of this original 

 professor : nor could I quarrel with the sickness, which 

 had been the means of developing another link in that 

 mysterious chain which binds me to the rest of creation, 

 by opening my ear and my heart more than ever to the 

 language of universal Nature." 



