The Natural History of Selborne 177 



therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast 

 your eye on my last letter, you will find that many species 

 continue to warble after the beginning of July. 



The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter very 

 late; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their 

 song : for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as 

 long as there is any incubation going on there is music. As 

 to the redbreast and wren, it is well known to the most 

 incurious observer that they whistle the year round, hard frost 

 excepted ; especially the latter. 



It is not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less 

 reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, 

 and the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, 

 they would require more nice and curious management in a 

 cage than I should be able to give them : they are both dis- 

 tinguished songsters. The note of the former has such a wild 

 sweetness that it always brings to my mind those lines in a 

 song in " As You Like It." 



" And time his merry note 

 Unto the wild bird's throat." SHAKESPEARE. 



The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the 

 song of several other birds ; but then it has also an hurrying 

 manner, not at all to its advantage : it is notwithstanding a 

 delicate polyglot. 



It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night; 

 perhaps only caged ones do so. I once knew a tame red- 

 breast in a cage that always sang as long as candles were in 

 the room ; but in their wild state no one supposes they sing 

 in the night. 



I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there are 

 to be seen much fewer birds in July than in any former month, 

 notwithstanding so many young are hatched daily. Sure I 

 am that it is far otherwise with respect to the swallow tribe, 

 which increases prodigiously as the summer advances : and I 

 saw at the time mentioned, many hundreds of young wagtails 

 on the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the 



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