The Scarcity of Song Thrushes. 63 



THE SCARCITY OF SONG THRUSHES. 



I have never known Song- Thrushes so scarce as they 

 are at present, and have been during all the past year, 

 1880. I speak of my own neighbourhood, South Here- 

 fordshire, though I have reason to believe it is the same 

 all over the country. Three summers ago, in my grounds, 

 I could hear two or three of these birds of song, un- 

 matched, save by the nightingale, singing at the same 

 time, and within a stone's throw of one another; and 

 singing all day long, from early morn till dewy eve, so 

 constantly and continuously I often wondered at vocal 

 powers that seemed never to fail or flag. But now all is 

 changed, and so changed ! The mellifluous notes of the 

 mavis are rarely heard ; and when heard it is in solitary 

 strain but one bird singing within earshot, and that only 

 on occasional days. Nor is this the worst or strangest part 

 of it still another change seeming to have come over the 

 thrush, making it parsimonious of its song. Instead of 

 the prolonged strain of former days, this year, whenever 

 and wherever I have heard it sing, there was but the 

 going over of its gamut two or three times, and all silence 

 for hours after ! 



This fact, for it is a fact so far as my observation extends 

 and I have several times observed and been surprised 

 at it courts inquiry as to its cause. Can it be because 

 the thrushes are so few in number, each pair with a wide 

 field to themselves, that the cock bird, having no rival 

 near, and therefore no motive to make display of his pre- 

 eminence in song, is for this reason so sparing of it ? The 

 conjecture that such is the cause may seem ludicrous 

 yet I can think of no other. And why may it not be 

 thus ? It is well known that caged birds sing better in 



