148 BIRDS AND BIRDS. 



III. 



I think it will be found, on the whole, that the 

 European birds are a more hardy and pugnacious 

 race than ours, and that their song-birds have more 

 vivacity and power, and ours more melody and plain- 

 tiveness. In the song of the sky-lark, for instance, 

 there is little or no melody, but wonderful strength 

 and copiousness. It is a harsh strain near at hand, 

 but very taking when showered down from a height 

 of several hundred feet. 



Daines Barrington, the naturalist of the last cent- 

 ury, to whom White of Selborne addressed so many 

 of his letters, gives a table of the comparative merit 

 of seventeen leading song-birds of Europe, marking 

 them under the heads of mellowness, sprightliness, 

 plaintiveness, compass and execution. In the aggre- 

 gate, the songsters stand highest in sprightliness, 

 next in compass and execution, and lowest in the 

 other two qualities. A similar arrangement and 

 comparison of our songsters, I think, would show an 

 opposite result, that is, a predominance of melody 

 and plaintiveness. The British wren, for instance, 

 stands in Barrington's table as destitute of both 

 these qualities ; the reed-sparrow also. Our wren- 

 songs, on the contrary, are gushing and lyrical, and 

 more or less melodious, that of the winter-wren 

 being preeminently so. Our sparrows, too, all have 

 sweet, plaintive ditties, with but little sprightliness or 

 compass. The English house-sparrow has no song at 



