JUNE 135 



XXXIII 



On the miserably cold and wet Saturday and Sunday 

 which finished up one of the most cheerless _ u 

 Junes on record (1907), the woods of Osterley, summer 

 near Brentford, resounded with the song of ofl907 

 thrushes and of the less vociferous blackbird. A cuckoo, 

 also, had managed to keep his voice unimpaired, and was 

 using it freely. All this is very unseasonable ; in ordinary 

 seasons the summer silence sets in before the end of 

 June, for it does not seem to be any part of the father 

 bird's duty to instruct his offspring in music. 1 The 

 nestlings must pick up the proper tune in the best way 

 they can; and it is a puzzle how on earth a young 

 cuckoo learns the orthodox note, seeing that he never 

 meets his own father at least he could not recognise 

 him if he did. The song of most birds seems to be 

 indissolubly connected with courtship and the honey- 

 moon. It is supposed that the vocal cords of a male 

 thrush, for instance, which, as Mr. Whichell has 

 recorded, sings continuously for sixteen hours of the 

 twenty-four, acquire peculiar toughness and resonance 

 during the breeding season. That seems to be in 

 perfect keeping with the superior splendour of bridal 

 array, so well marked in many species, though not so in 

 the song-thrush ; but it is not easy to understand how 

 this hypothetical strengthening of the larynx for the 

 nuptial occasion is prolonged to meet the exigency 



1 Both blackbirds and thrushes were vociferous in the same woods 

 of Osterley, 17th-19th July 1909, long after their Scottish fellows 

 had ceased to sing. 



