SUMMER BIRDS. 321 



agrees with the classification of them by the more 

 recent and accurate ornithologists. The swallow tribe, 

 some of the warblers, and the wagtails, take the vicinity 

 of human habitations and waters for their division of 

 the country. The remainder of the warblers and by 

 far the greater number of them, take up their abodes 

 in the woods, coppices, and enclosed and cultivated 

 countries, and the chats repair to the open downs and 

 wastes. With the exception of the swallow tribe, 

 which have merely a sound or noise, and some of them 

 a screech, those birds all have some sort of song or 

 other, and to them chiefly we are indebted for the 

 music of the summer. Of them all, 'the most eminent 

 for their vocal powers are the warblers, which have got 

 their name from the modulation or measure of notes 

 in their song. These may all be regarded as love 

 songs, and many of them have other sounds, such as 

 call-notes and notes of alarm, that are not musical, and 

 that common voice of which it is not very easy to 

 know the purport. 



Those birds, even the different species that frequent 

 the same parts of the country, have different localities, 

 according as they are adapted for places that are more 

 open or more sheltered ; but it is, of course, a general 

 law that there is the greatest variety of them in the 

 richest and warmest parts of the country, a greater 

 variety, for instance, in England than in Scotland ; 

 and, as we are to suppose that they fly more by the 

 continent, where they can rest and feed upon their 

 journey, and as some of them winter there without 

 proceeding farther, we may presume that there is a 

 greater variety in the south-east parts of the country 



