ACCORDANCE WITH SCENE. 19 



celebrated. Who could imagine that, by such simple 

 machinery, such dulcet sounds could be produced? a 

 cartilaginous tube, with valves and air-passages, and a few 

 muscles to contract or expand the one, and open or close 

 the other. This is all, and listen to the result ! 



There has always appeared to us a peculiar fitness in the 

 strains poured forth by the feathered songsters to the sea- 

 sons in which they sing, and the places which they frequent, 

 and we quite coincide with Ruegg, who says : 



The voices of the birds appear to have a special adaptation to 

 their localities and habits. Almost all the birds that haunt our 

 coasts, with the exception of the Antidce, or Ducks, have a low me- 

 lancholy wail, clear and melodious, but still wild, that appears to me 

 to be admirably in keeping with the loneliness of the spots they 

 inhabit. Before us lies the wide waste of waters, with here and 

 there a heavy lagging sail, which seems to mock the very idea of life 

 and bustle ; around us spreads an unbroken extent of low, marshy 

 land, where no trees rear their heads, and where rush and sanfoin 

 alone may grow. How beautiful, in unison with such a scene, is the 

 clear shrill whistle of the Curlew and Plover, and the wild hoarse 

 voice of the Gull ! It makes sadness pleasingly sad, and desolation 

 more desolate, to listen to such sounds amidst such scenery. Who 

 would like to hear them in the neighbourhood of his dwelling ? for 

 which the busy chirp of the Sparrows, the twittering of the Swallows, 

 and the loud clear accents of the Chanticleer, are so well attuned. 

 Copse and woodland, covert, hedgerows, and orchard, seem made 

 purposely for the clear music of the Mavis and Merle. With what 

 clear accents pour forth these gladsome notes from every dale and 

 dingle ; and how harmoniously they rush through apple blossoms, 

 and May flowers, and sweet-smelling plants. They render rusticity 

 more rustic, and are the most glorious paeans that could be sung at 

 the revels of luxuriant nature. Birds do not sing in winter amidst 

 the gloom and mist and thick-pelting snow, but reserve their songs 

 for spring and summer, nature's fairest and rosiest holidays. Where 

 shall the Skylark find a freer temple for his rich morning song than the 

 blue firmament, with azure above him and emerald shades beneath, and 

 the bright sunbeams sparkling on every plume ? Or what other shall 

 the Nightingale choose for her clear orisons than the witching hour 

 of eve, when the earth and all its creatures are hushed into a willing 

 auditory ? Surely the Plover was made for solitude, and the Mavis 

 for glad retirement, and the Fowl for the barn-door ; the Skylark for 

 mid-heaven, and the Nightingale for the dewy eve. 



A few remarks on the vocal organs of birds cannot be 

 out of place here. Macgillivray, who has entered very fully 



