VOICES OF BIRDS. 71 



trilled out most regularly some notes that conveyed 

 so clearly the words, lady-bird ! lady-bird ! that 

 every one remarked the resemblance. He survived 

 the winter, and in the ensuing season, the lady- 

 bird ! lady-bird ! was still the burden of our even- 

 ing song ; it then ceased, and we never heard this 

 pretty modulation more. Though merely an occa- 

 sional strain, yet I have noticed it elsewhere it 

 thus appearing to be a favourite utterance. Harsh, 

 strained, and tense, as the notes of this bird are, 

 yet they are pleasing from their variety. The voice 

 of the blackbird is infinitely more mellow, but has 

 much less variety, compass, or execution ; and he 

 too commences his carols with the morning light, 

 persevering from hour to hour without effort, or 

 any sensible faltering of voice. The cuckoo wearies 

 us throughout some long May morning with the 

 unceasing monotony of its song, and though there 

 are others as vociferous, yet it is the only bird I 

 know that seems to suffer from the use of the organs 

 of voice. Little exertion as the few notes it makes 

 use of seem to require, yet, by the middle or end of 

 June, it loses its utterance, becomes hoarse, and 

 ceases from any further essay of it. The croaking 

 of the nightingale in June, or the end of May, is 

 not apparently occasioned by the loss of voice, but 

 a change of note, a change of object; his song 

 ceases when his mate has hatched her brood ; vi- 

 gilance, anxiety, caution, now succeed to harmony, 

 and his croak is the hush, the warning of danger 



