SONGS OF BIRDS. 125 



ing season, and which generally arrive some days be- 

 fore the females, begin their songs before there is a 

 single mate to hear them. Solitary birds, too, sing in 

 their cages, though they have been taken young from 

 the nest and never have seen an individual of their 

 species. So that the song of the bird is as immediately 

 the result of the circumstances in which it is placed, as 

 any of the changes that we see in organic or even in 

 inorganic matter. But being one in a succession of 

 phenomena, it must be followed by some event, and 

 that event must also be modified by circumstances. 

 It is by the careful observation of those that we are to 

 find out the next event in the succession, though in the 

 present state of our knowledge, the pleasure that the 

 songs of birds afford us, are almost all that we possess 

 upon this very curious subject. 



And few birds are more delightful than the woodlark. 

 Though far from being a scarce bird, or so local in its 

 range as has sometimes been said, it is not quite so 

 abundant as the skylark ; but we have often seen and 

 heard it by wood sides far north in Scotland, though 

 we have never heard it very far north in the winter. In 

 summer its song is often continued in the evening ; 

 and that has caused it to be occasionally mistaken 

 for the nightingale, to which, however, its note has 

 little similarity. As the food is the same as that of the 

 skylark, we might infer the same partial migration. 

 Perhaps, indeed, its tendency to migrate is greater 

 than that of the other ; and on the continent it is said 

 to leave entirely, in the winter months, the countries to 

 the north of the Baltic. Many birds have a greater 

 seasonal range there than in Britain, of course because 

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