Birds to Keep. 7 



in concerts of Nightingales on the lawn, or heard in 

 the depth of woods in quiet evening drives, but in 

 rooms they fancy that they are rather loud. Wood- 

 larks, on the contrary, with their trills of music, are 

 .almost too sad to listen to, except in a garden aviary, 

 where they may be happy. 



4. For garden aviaries, Warblers are perfect ; 

 they need much care and to be enclosed in winter ; 

 but to a large conservatory, a little greenhouse full of 

 shrubs and warblers, or even large cages, half hidden 

 among the orange-trees and camellias, would be a 

 charming adjunct. There, protected from cold and 

 provided against starvation, the birds would be happy, 

 and their songs would be songs of joy ; in rooms, 

 shut up in little cages, they fret out their hearts, and 

 if they sing it is the low sweet melancholy note which 

 laments for their own free air. 



Still it must be owned that when they have. once been 

 caught and have been long confined, much more when 

 they have been brought up from the nest, it is better 

 to let them stay and to make them then as happy as 

 is possible, since they would be very helpless left to 

 their own resources. 



5. In the hard-billed class, my own .special 

 favourites amongst English birds are the Goldfinches 

 .and Linnets, Bullfinches and Robins ; they are such 

 sweet- voiced singers, and learn other notes so readily, 

 .that even the warblers' songs are not lost to my room 



