,_ PLEASURE DERIVED FROM BIRDS. 189 



makes use of seem to require, yet, by the middle or end 

 of June, it loses its utterance, becomes hoarse, and 

 ceases from any further essay of it. The croaking of 

 the nightingale in June, or the end of May, is not ap- 

 parently 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 

 the 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, throughout the 

 orders of creation, any beings that so continually en- 

 gage 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 glitter- 

 ing splendor around us ; and of all the miraculous crea- 

 tures 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 quadrupeds, 

 few and wary, veil their actions in the glooms of night, 

 and we see little of them ; but birds are with us al- 

 ways, they give a character to spring, and are identifie 

 with it ; they enchant and amuse us all summer long 

 with their sports, animation, hilarity, and glee ; they 

 cluster round us, suppliant in the winter of our year, 

 and, unrepining through cold and want, seek their 

 scanty meal amidst the refuse of the barn, the stalls of 

 the cattle, or at the doors of our house ; or, flitting 

 hungry from one denuded and bare spray to another, 

 excite our pity and regard ; their lives are patterns of 

 gaiety, cleanliness, alacrity, and joy. 



* See note Z, appendix. 



