ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS. 133 



more good songsters in this country than in Great. 

 Britain. They furnish the staple of our bird-melody, 

 including in the family the tanager and the grosbeaks, 

 while in Europe the warblers lead. White names 

 seven finches in his list, and Barrington includes 

 eight, none of them very noted songsters, except the 

 linnet. Our list would include the sparrows above 

 named, and the indigo-bird, the goldfinch, the purple 

 finch, the scarlet tanager, the rose-breasted grosbeak, 

 the blue grosbeak, and the cardinal bird. Of these 

 birds, all except the fox-sparrow and the blue gros- 

 beak are familiar summer songsters throughout the 

 Middle and Eastern States. The indigo-bird is a 

 midsummer and an all-summer songster of great brill- 

 iancy. So is the tanager. I judge there is no Eu- 

 ropean thrush that, in the pure charm of melody and 

 hymn-like serenity and spirituality, equals our wood 

 and hermit thrushes, as there is no bird there that, 

 in simple lingual excellence, approaches our bobo- 

 link. 



The European cuckoo makes more music than 

 ours, and their robin-redbreast is a better singer than 

 the allied species, to wit, the bluebird, with us. But 

 it is mainly in the larks and warblers that the Euro- 

 pean birds are richer in songsters than are ours. 

 We have an army of small wood-warblers, no less 

 than forty species, but most of them have faint 

 chattering or lisping songs that escape all but the 

 most attentive ear, and then they spend the summer 

 far to the north. Our two wagtails are our most brill- 



