128 



Song Birds in Europe and America. 



except that a " Pennsylvania wood " is 

 incidentally referred to. It is difficult to 

 believe, however, that he can have had 

 much, if any, experience with other por- 

 tions of the country east of the Mississippi, 

 for his comparisons certainly will not hold 

 good for a large number of localities both 

 east and w-est of the Alleghanies, however 

 applicable they may be to the immediate 

 vicinity of our larger Eastern cities. His 

 comparison is also unfair in that, while 

 questioning the existence in America of 

 any " peer of the nightingale," he neg- 

 lected to inquire where, in England — or 

 the rest of Europe for that matter — can be 

 found even any approach to our mocking- 

 bird, although since it is tacitly granted 

 that in the two countries the quality of 

 bird song " is equal," we can afford to pass 

 this by. It may also be remarked that the 

 comparative number of species which can 

 properly be ranked as songsters belonging 

 to the United States east of the Mississippi 

 River is about twice as great as that be- 

 longing to the entire extent of the British 

 Islands, counting in each case every species 

 the male of which utters notes peculiar to 

 the breeding season, or, in other words, 

 has a song, however rude. It is conceded 

 by the writer to whom I have referred that 

 the quality of their song is equal. Is there 

 not, therefore, apparently some inconsist- 

 ency in the statement that the United 

 States is so greatly deficient in bird song 

 as compared with England ? Or, should 

 the statement be true, is it not an 

 anomaly which requires explanation ? Al- 

 though no explanation has, so far as I am 

 aware, been attempted, the reason seems 

 very obvious. In the first place, it would 

 be almost impossible in most parts of 

 thickly populated England, for a bird to 

 sing without being heard by human ears. 

 In the second place — and what is by far 

 the most important factor in the case — 

 birds in England have for many genera- 

 tions been protected in numerous ways. 



until, in their almost absolute immunity 

 from the perils to which they are in this 

 country constantly exposed, a compara- 

 tively large number have become accus- 

 tomed to the society of man. Laws pro- 

 tecting all kinds of song birds, and their 

 nests and eggs are there enforced with a 

 strictness which is absolutely unknown in 

 any portion of the United States ; and, 

 in the numerous carefully policed public 

 parks and thoroughfares and extensive pri- 

 vate grounds, which ample wealth and long 

 cultivation have made a veritable para- 

 dise for birds, they live in full knowledge of 

 their security, and with nothing to check 

 their natural increase. The extreme scarcity 

 of predatory birds and mammals, which 

 have been for a long time nearly exter- 

 minated throughout England, has also 

 assisted to bring about that affluence of 

 bird life which is so justly the pride of the 

 English people. 



In " the United States, notwithstanding 

 the derogatory comparisons which have 

 been made — and which, it is true, will, 

 for reasons stated above, apply to the 

 vicinity of our more densely populated 

 centers, and also to regions of extensive 

 forests — a condition at least closely ap- 

 proaching that which is claimed as peculiar 

 to the British Islands may be found in cer- 

 tain favored sections ; that is, in those 

 parts where bits of deciduous woodland 

 and open country alternate, with plenty of 

 local variety in the landscape. Such a 

 description will apply to a very large por- 

 tion of the United States situated between 

 the Alleghanies, on the one hand, and the 

 Great Plains on the other, although not by 

 any means exclusively to that region. The 

 writer was once informed by a young Cana 

 dian ornithologist — a specially observant 

 " field naturalist " with a remarkably fine ear 

 for bird notes, and able to imitate many with 

 great exactness — that during several years' 

 residence in England he never heard finer 

 nor more abundant bird music than on the 



