16 INTRODUCTION. 



Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one 

 The livelong night : nor these alone, whose notes 

 Nice-finger'd art must emulate in vain, 

 But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime 

 In still repeated circles, screaming loud, 

 The jay, the pie, and ev'n the boding owl, 

 That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. 

 Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, 

 Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, 

 And only there, please highly for their sake. 



The Task. 



But we are here speaking of the sounds of animals 

 as simply indicating the progress of the seasons. It 

 has been said, and it is not far from the truth, that 

 if an observant naturalist, who had been long shut 

 up in darkness and solitude, without any measure of 

 time, were suddenly brought blindfolded into the 

 open fields and woods, he might gather with consi- 

 derable accuracy from the various notes and noises 

 which struck his ears what the exact period of the 

 year might be.* Some instances of a remarkable 

 coincidence in this respect will be found mentioned 

 in the body of this work. 



(12.) There is much pleasure in watching and re- 

 gistering such natural phenomena as we last alluded 

 to, whether, after all, we turn them to any account 



* Humboldt has made a somewhat similar remark, with respect 

 to the power of distinguishing the different hours of the day, in 

 tropical countries, by the hum of the insects that succeed one 

 another at fixed periods. He observes, 



" The insects of the tropics everywhere follow a certain stand- 

 ard in the periods at which they alternately arrive and disappear. 

 At fixed and invariable hours, in the same season, and the same 



