Introductory. 9 



and others ; while the night- jar, or goat-sucker (Capri- 

 mulgus), on equally silent wing sweeps along the wood's 

 edge, or lights beside the sheep in pen or pasture. 



With singing birds I am blessed. Summer and winter 

 the blackbird delights me with his bold lay ; the thrush 

 making music of a more scientific strain. The lark and 

 grey linnet also salute me throughout the diurnal hours, 

 mingling their notes in harmony with those of the three 

 finches chaff, bull, and gold all of which nest in the 

 near trees and shrubberies. Among the humbler warb- 

 lers, I can detect the twitter of several species of tits, as 

 the blue, long-tailed, cole, and marsh ; but, though not 

 the grandest of bird melody, perhaps pleasantest to our 

 ear is the gentle trill of the robin, for he lets us hear it 

 throughout the chill winter-tide, when most of the more 

 ambitious songsters are silent. In spring, however, and 

 throughout the summer months, we have a wandering 

 minstrel, who pays ui an annual visit ; and while he is 

 with us, all our other feathered musicians, if not shamed 

 into silence, seem, at least, to feel their inferiority. For 

 he is primo-tenore, primo-basso, soprano, contralto 

 everything ! Need I say that this distinguished visitor 

 is the nightingale ? Though he gives his concerts chiefly 

 during the hours of night, and notably between mid- 

 night and morning, yet oft are we favoured with them 

 during broad daylight. In the early part of last summer 

 I more than once heard his matchless strain meant, no 

 doubt, for his mate, the " prima donna/' sitting on her 

 nest, and for the time silent heard it in the afternoon, 

 with a bright sun shining in the sky ! Which gives 

 contradiction to the old song, 



" The nightingale, I've heard them say, 

 Sings but at laight, and not by day,'* 



