146 Bird- Life in Early Scottish Literature. [Sess. 



The lark scho sang, Haill Eois both reid and quhyte, 

 Most pleasand flour, of michty collouris twane ; 

 The nychtingail sang, Haill Nature's suffragane, 

 In bewty, nurtour, and every nobilness, 

 In rich array, renown, and gentilness. 

 The common voice upraise of birdis small, 

 Upon this wyis, O blessit be the hour 

 That thou wes chosin to be our principall." 



This is of course artificial in character. In the " Golden 

 Targe," however, another of Dunbar's poems, we have a beauti- 

 ful pen-picture of the lark in her native element — 



"The morn is breaking, and 

 Upraise the lark, the hevyn's menstrale fyne." 



The list has for us another interest. Two well-known song- 

 birds are added to our list, — the mavis with his polyglot 

 song, and the merle with his flute-like notes. I must say I 

 greatly prefer the old Scottish name for the latter bird to the 

 one now in use. The term blackbird has nothing very dis- 

 tinctive about it. It is not a bit poetical, and might very 

 well be applied to other birds who share with it a dusky 

 plumage. But merle is beautiful, and it exactly describes the 

 bird's rich song as heard in May or June. It is indeed a 

 " merling " through the woods, a succession of musical sounds 

 of candied sweetness. " To merl " is an old Galloway word 

 meaning to candy honey. 



A nightingale is referred to here as welcoming the English 

 Queen to Scotland. I have come across a number of refer- 

 ences to the nightingale in early Scottish poetry. Did the 

 bird travel farther north in these old days ? or did poets, 

 listening to the notes of some rare singer, and knowing not 

 what name to give it, simply call it the nightingale ? Most 

 probably the latter view is the true explanation. Perhaps 

 it was the pearly music of the blackcap which suggested 

 memories of the nightingale's song. The blackcap is a very 

 shy bird, that is rarely seen and not so often heard. When 

 you do hear it, it sings to you out of thick cover, and to be 

 charmed by its rapturous song you have to stand still and 

 keep perfectly quiet. The slightest movement and it has 

 dropped down into thicker cover and stilled its voice, that its 



