344 APPENDIX. VI. 



The food of singing birds consists of plants, 

 insects, or seeds, and of the two first of these 

 there is infinitely the greatest profusion in the 

 spring. 



As for seeds, which are to be met with only 

 in the autumn, I think they cannot well find 

 any great quantities of them in a country so 

 - , cultivated as England is ; for the seeds in mea- 



dows are destroyed by mowing; in pastures, 

 by the bite of the cattle; and in arable, by 

 the plough, when most of them are buried too 

 deep for the bird to reach them.* 



I know well that the singing of the cock-bird 

 in the spring is attributed by manyf to the 

 motive only of pleasing its mate during incu- 

 bation. 



. They, however, who suppose this, should 

 recollect, that much the greater part of birds 

 do not sing at all : why should their mate 

 therefore be deprived of this solace and amuse- 

 ment ? 



The bird in a cage, which, perhaps, sings 



nine or ten months in a year, cannot do so from 



... this inducement ; and, on the contrary, it arises 



* The plough indeed may turn up some few seeds, which 

 may still be in an eatable state. 



f See, amongst others, M. de Biiffon, in his lately-published 

 Ornithology. 



