// February Singers 



NEXT to the strengthening of the light, the clearest 

 sign of the year's advance is the increasing song of 

 the birds. Only the week or ten days in mid- April 

 when we first hear the cuckoo, sedge-warbler, and 

 the other most vocal summer visitors, bring so regular 

 and conspicuous an addition to our singing birds as 

 the middle fortnight of February. In January the 

 only constant singers were the song-thrush and 

 the robin, which began to sing in August or Sep- 

 tember, and do not cease again, except temporarily 

 in the hardest weather, until July. More rarely the 

 desultory calling of the missel-thrush is heard, even 

 in January, amid the song-thrush's indefatigable 

 music : somtimes, indeed, the missel-thrush is to 

 be heard even before Christmas, in the mild Decem- 

 ber weather, which seems spring-like except for the 

 weakness of the light and the darkness of the 

 unquickened air. As February progresses, the 

 song of the missel-thrush is heard in constantly 

 increasing power. The blackbird is a later and less 

 zealous singer than either of the thrushes, and loves 

 best to wait for the coming of full spring before 

 abandoning himself freely to song. But he is almost 

 always heard before the end of February, in the 

 morning or at sunset of tener than at midday ; and 

 now, when the trees are still unleaved and the 



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