18 HISTORY OF 



ing the winter, then begin to expand ; vegetables 

 and insects supply abundance of food ; and the 

 bird having more than a sufficiency for its own 

 subsistence, is impelled to transfuse life as well 

 as to maintain it. Those warblings which had 

 been hushed during the colder seasons, now be- 

 gin to animate the fields ; every grove and busli 

 resounds with the challenge of anger, or the call 

 of allurement. This delightful concert of the 

 grove, which is so much admired by man, is no 

 way studied for his amusement ; it is usually the 

 call of the male to the female, his efforts to 

 soothe her during the times of incubation ; or it is 

 a challenge between two males for the affections 

 of some common favourite. 



It is by this call that birds begin to pair at the 

 approach of spring, and provide for the support 

 of a future progeny. The loudest notes are usu- 

 ally from the male; while the hen seldom ex- 

 presses her consent, but in a short interrupted 

 twittering. This compact, at least for the sea- 

 son, holds with unbroken faith ; many birds live 

 with inviolable fidelity together for a constancy ; 

 and when one dies, the other is always seen to 

 share the same fate soon after. We must not take 

 our idea of the conjugal fidelity of birds from ob- 

 serving the poultry in our yards, whose freedom is 

 abridged, and whose manners are totally corrupted 

 by slavery. We must look for it in our fields and 

 our forests, where nature continues in unadulte- 

 rated simplicity, where the number of males is 

 generally equal to that of females, and where 

 every little animal seems prouder of his progeny 



