MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



tournament, on the lover who proves himself 

 the stoutest and the worthiest. For we 

 must always remember that those liquid 

 notes which thrill our souls on glad spring 

 mornings have been acquired by the bird, 

 not for our human delight, but as a charm 

 for the ears of his own love-sick partner. 

 For her he modulates his swelling throat ; 

 for her he showers down that fountain spray 

 of melody. Time was when birds had no 

 such musical skill, no such art of courtship ; 

 and traces still remain to us in many lands 

 of that more primitive period. Just as 

 man is most advanced, most civilized, most 

 modern in Europe, so birds are most ad- 

 vanced, most developed, most musical of 

 voice in the eastern continent. And just 

 as primitive races linger on in South Africa, 

 Polynesia, the Andaman Islands, to give us 

 some pregnant hint of our own early an- 

 cestry, so more antique and less evolved 

 types of bird linger on in South America 

 and Australia, to show us some relics of the 

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