166 WINTER SUNSHINE 



" O Blackbird, sing me something well ; 

 While all the neighbors shoot thee round 

 I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground 

 Where thou may'st warble, eat, and dwell." 



It quite startled me to see such a resemblance, 

 to see, indeed, a black robin. In size, form, flight, 

 manners, note, call, there is hardly an appreciable 

 difference. The bird starts up with the same flirt 

 of the wings, and calls out in the same jocund, salu 

 tatory way, as he hastens off. The nest, of coarse 

 mortar in the fork of a tree, or in an outbuilding, 

 or in the side of a wall, is also the same. 



The bird I wished most to hear, namely, the 

 nightingale, had already departed on its southern 

 journey. I saw one in the Zoological Gardens in 

 London, and took a good look at him. He struck 

 me as bearing a close resemblance to our hermit 

 thrush, with something in his manners that sug 

 gested the water-thrush also. Carlyle said he first 

 recognized its song from the description of it in 

 "Wilhelm Meister," and that it was a "sudden 

 burst," which is like the song of our water-thrush. 



I have little doubt our songsters excel in melody, 

 while the European birds excel in profuseness and 

 volubility. I heard many bright, animated notes 

 and many harsh ones, but few that were melodious. 

 This fact did not harmonize with the general drift 

 of the rest of my observations, for one of the first 

 things that strikes an American in Europe is the 

 mellowness and rich tone of things. The European 

 is softer- voiced than the American and milder-man 

 nered, but the bird voices seem an exception to this 

 rule. 



