ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS. 



THE charm of the songs of birds, like that of a 

 nation's popular airs and hymns, is so little a ques- 

 tion of intrinsic musical excellence and so largely a 

 matter of association and suggestion, or of subjective 

 coloring and reminiscence, that it is perhaps entirely 

 natural for every people to think their own feathered 

 songsters the best. What music would there not be 

 to the homesick American, in Europe, in the simple 

 and plaintive note of our bluebird, or the ditty of our 

 song-sparrow, or the honest carol of our robin ; and 

 what to the European traveler in this country, in the 

 burst of the blackcap, or the red-breast, or the whis- 

 tle of the merlin ! The relative merit of bird-songs 

 can hardly be settled dogmatically ; I suspect there 

 is very little of what we call music, or of what could 

 be noted on the musical scale, in even the best of 

 them ; they are parts of nature, and their power is in 

 the degree in which they speak to our experience. 



When the Duke of Argyll, who is a lover of the 

 birds and a good ornithologist, was in this country, 

 he got the impression that our song-birds were infe- 

 rior to the British, and he refers to others of his coun- 

 trymen as of like opinion. No wonder he thought 



