184 THKUSH. 



the treacherous Saxons or the Norman adventurers had 

 touched the soil. 



As for the note, that man can have no music in his soul 

 who does not love the song of the Throstle. Who would 

 not stand still to listen to it in the tranquil summer evening, 

 and look for the place of the vocalist? Presently you will 

 discover the delightful bird pouring forth his lay from the 

 top of some neighbouring tree; you will see his throat swelling 

 with his love song, and hear it you may, if you choose to 

 linger, till sable night casts her dark mantle on all around, 

 and wraps the face of nature in the shroud. Begun with the 

 dawn of day, the Mavis has continued his clear and liquid 

 notes at intervals till now that evening has come, when he 

 must sing his evening hymn, and remind you of your own 

 orisions to the Great Creator. The calm eventide is the 

 hour at which he most delights to sing, and rich and eloquent 

 then, as always, are his strains. Uninterruptedly he warbles 

 the mellifluous and harmonious sounds, which now rise in 

 strength, and now fall in measured cadences, filling your ear 

 with the ravishing melody, and now die away so soft and low, 

 that they are scarcely audible. If you alarm him, you break 

 the charm; he will suddenly cease, and silently drop into the 

 underwood beneath. 



Each modulation consists of four or five syllables, each 

 repeated from three or four to seven times, and then changed 

 for another movement. They are uttered more slowly or more 

 rapidly at different times, and the tones are sometimes so 

 varied, that they might be supposed to proceed from different 

 birds, at different distances from the listener. Meyer also 

 mentions that he has heard the chant of the Nightingale 

 successfully imitated. Two birds at a distance will often 

 answer to each other in 'Strophe' and 'Antistrophe,' the one 

 beginning when the other ceases; and several may often be 

 heard singing together in concert at one and the same time. 



The Thrush begins to sing in the very earliest part of the 

 year, even in January or February, according to the season, 

 and has been heard so soon as the third of the former month: 

 even the heaviest rain does not stop its lay. Those to whose 

 ears the voice of the Throstle is familiar, and before whose 

 minds the recollection of their school days brings the name 

 'Ludovique Desprez,' will be able to appreciate the suggestion 

 of a similitude of that date between the sweet note of the 



