274 INSECTIVOR^. 



and the whole body glow, we know not why ; and thus we 

 have at least no ground for denying, without proof, that the 

 other animals may be affected in a similar manner. Perhaps 

 the more philosophical way of considering it is to suppose 

 that it produces general excitement, and a power of more 

 energetic performance in all the labour which the birds can 

 undertake. 



The connexion between the song and the plumage, and the 

 silence and the moult, is also a curious matter, and shows 

 that the whole bird is subject to some general law, which, 

 though it lies deep beyond the power of our divination, 

 governs even the minutest circumstance the production of a 

 new spot or gloss on a feather, the reddening of a comb or a 

 wattle, or the inspiration of courage into birds naturally 

 timid. The birds, in fact, blossom in the spring as well as 

 the plants, and when the purpose of nature is accomplished, 

 the bloom of the one is shed as well as that of the other. 

 But if the purpose of nature in continuing the race is not 

 accomplished, the bloom lingers. If the east wind shrivel 

 the anthers of the peach-blossoms, the petals do not come 

 down perfect in that powdery shower which is the sign of a 

 plentiful crop, they cleave to the tree, and languish slowly 

 there. " Wo be to the wind of the bleak north-east," says 

 the cultivator, " it sheds no blooms ; " and so also may the 

 lover of birds lament, if the songs of his favourites are con- 

 tinued, through the summer. If the bird continues its song, 

 it at the same time continues its plumage ; and the moult, 

 when it does take place, partly because it is at a later and 

 colder season, and partly from that part of physiology which 

 has not yet become a science, the new plumage has less of 

 the peculiarity of the male, and more resembles that of the 

 female and the young, than if the bird had been mute and 

 had moulted, in due course. 



That song of sorrow (though to the bird it is rather a 



