Redwing. 133 



in the silent months of winter, and hearing then nothing but an 

 occasional and rather discordant chattering, few have any notion 

 of the loud and clear and exquisitely sweet note with which it 

 enlivens the thickets and copses of Norway in a summer night, 

 if, indeed, that can be called night where the sun merely ap- 

 proaches the horizon and ascends again, or at the most sets and 

 rises within the hour ; and where, during a three months' tour, I 

 never saw a candle, but could see to read and write in the darkest 

 of log-huts at any hour of the night. This, indeed, was the time 

 and place to appreciate the song of the redwing ; when we drove 

 through the sombre forests in the night, as we frequently did to 

 escape the excessive heat of the sun, which, scarcely ever being 

 out of sight during the summer, does not suffer the air to get 

 thoroughly cooled during the night, and strikes down almost as 

 hot as I have felt it in Rome in May, or Naples in June, to the 

 great advantage of the crops, but to the scorching of the mid- day 

 traveller. Passing on in single file, each in his carriole, through 

 the interminable forests, one of which we traversed for no less 

 than 100 miles, while on the Swedish side it stretched out 50 

 miles on our left, with but one road for wheels throughout its 

 length and breadth; scarcely meeting a human being in those 

 vast solitudes, save only at the few posthouses, at long interven- 

 ing distances ; imagine all this, and it may be understood how 

 full of enjoyment we found it to listen to the delicious notes of the 

 redwing, poured forth in the wildest yet most harmonious strains 

 from the tops of some of the highest trees around us. Indeed, 

 the absence of the redwing would be a serious blank in Norway, 

 and very sensibly felt by the inhabitants, who, being a remark- 

 ably primitive and simple people, unsophisticated and kind- 

 hearted, never wantonly illtreat their birds or animals, but 

 cherish and protect them, and are rewarded by the most un- 

 bounded confidence in return; birds which are wildest and 

 shyest with us building close to the houses of the Norwegians, 

 and not caring to move out of the way as you drive by. But if 

 this long digression on the home of the redwing appears irrelevant 

 to my subject on Wiltshire birds, I submit that the cause of its 



