WHITE'S SELBORNE xi 



as well as by their colors and shape, on the ground as well as 

 on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand. 1 Many 

 of the numerous species of the songsters which he de- 

 scribes are already more or less familiar to the reader through 

 the poets ; as the nightingale, redbreast, blackcap, linnet, 

 ouzel, wren, and starling ; the blackbird, or merle ; the thrush, 

 or mavis ; the ring-dove, or cushat ; the skylark, " messenger 

 of morn ; " the cuckoo, " darling of the spring ; " the missel- 

 thrush, or stormcock, which loves to sing in wind and rain ; 

 and the chaffinch and yellowhammer, beloved by Jefferies. 2 



Numerous other birds which he describes, on the contrary, 

 are strangers to one not versed in British ornithology; as, 

 for instance, the chiff-chaff, hedge-sparrow, fieldfare, titlark, 

 sedge-warbler, willow-lark, stone-chat, whin-chat, redstart, and 

 wryneck, as well as the marsh-titmouse, with his two quaint 

 notes " like the whetting of a saw " ; and that " delicate poly- 

 glot," the sedge-bird, with his medley of notes resembling the 

 songs of other birds. Among strange birds may also be enu- 

 merated the nut-hatch, which he could hear a furlong or more 

 off; the stone-curlew, whose clamor was audible to him at the 

 distance of a mile ; the smallest uncrested willow-wren, which 

 utters two sharp, piercing notes so loud in hollow woods as to 

 occasion an echo ; and the grasshopper-lark, chirping all 

 night. 



He early discovered that all species whose habit it is to 

 continue in full song until after midsummer, which Thoreau 

 characterizes as "the poets and true singers," breed more 



1 Letter LXXXIV. 



2 The yellowhammer is almost the longest of all the singers. In the spring he 

 sings, in the summer he sings, and he continues when the last sheaves are being 

 carried from the wheat-field. . . . The yellowhammer is the most persistent indi- 

 vidually, but I think the blackbirds when listened to are the masters of the fields. 

 Before one can finish another begins, like the summer ripples succeeding behind 

 each other, so that the melodious sound merely changes its position. Now here, 

 now in the corner, then across the field, again in the distant copse, where it seems 

 about to sink, when it rises again almost at hand. Like a great human artist, the 

 blackbird makes no effort, being fully conscious that his liquid tone cannot be 

 matched. He utters a few delicious notes, and carelessly quits the green stage of 

 the oak till it pleases him to sing again. Without the blackbird, in whose throat 

 the sweetness of the green fields dwells, the days would be only partly summer. 

 RICHARD JEFFERIES, The Pageant of Summer. 



