126 FRESH FIELDS 



and familiar than ours ; more directly and intimately 

 associated with man; not, as a class, so withdrawn 

 and lost in the great void of the wild and the unre- 

 claimed. England is like a continent concentrated, 

 — ajl the waste land, the barren stretches, the wil- 

 dernesses, left out. The birds are brought near 

 together and near to man. Wood-birds here are 

 house and garden birds there. They find good 

 pasturage and protection everywhere. A land of 

 parks, and gardens, and hedge-rows, and game pre- 

 serves, and a climate free from violent extremes, — 

 what a stage for the birds, and for enhancing the 

 effect of their songs! How prolific they are, how 

 abundant! If our songsters were hunted and 

 trapped by bird-fanciers and others, as the lark, 

 and goldfinch, and mavis, etc., are in England, the 

 race would soon become extinct. Then, as a rule, 

 it is probably true that the British birds as a class 

 have more voice than ours have, or certain qualities 

 that make their songs more striking and conspicu- 

 ous, such as greater vivacity and strength. They 

 are less bright in plumage, but more animated in 

 voice. They are not so recently out of the woods, 

 and their strains have not that elusiveness and 

 plaintiveness that ours have. They sing with more 

 confidence and copiousness, and as if they, too, had 

 been touched by civilization. 



Then they sing more hours in the day, and more 

 days in the year. This is owing to the milder and 

 more equable climate. I heard the skylark singing 

 above the South Downs in October, apparently with 



