276 PLEASURE DERIVED FROM BIRDS. 



of May, is not apparently occasioned by the loss of 

 voice, but a change of note, a change of object ; 

 his song ceases when his mate has hatched her 

 brood ; vigilance, anxiety, caution, now succeed to 

 harmony, and his croak is the hush, the warning of 

 danger or suspicion to the infant charge and th e 

 mother bird. 



But here I must close my notes of birds, lest 

 their actions and their ways, so various and so 

 pleasing, should lure me on to protract 



" My tedious tale through many a page ;" 



for I have always been an admirer of these elegant 

 creatures, their notes, their nests, their eggs, and 

 all the economy of their lives ; nor have we through- 

 out the orders of creation, any beings that so con- 

 tinually engage our attention as these our feathered 

 companions. Winter takes from us all the gay 

 world of the meads, the sylphs that hover over our 

 flowers, that steal our sweets, that creep, or gently 

 wing their way in glittering splendour around us ; 

 and of all the miraculous creatures that sported 

 their hour in the sunny beam, the winter gnat 

 (tipula hiemalis) alone remains to frolic in some 

 rare and partial gleam. The myriads of the pool 

 are dormant, or hidden from our sight ; the qua- 

 drupeds, few and wary, veil their actions in the 

 glooms of night, and we see little of them ; but 

 birds are with us always, they give a character to 

 spring, and are identified with it ; they enchant and 

 amuse us all glimmer long with their sports, aiii- 



