AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



83 



of cheering his mate during the period of incubation; but 

 this idea, gallant as it is, has such slight foundation in 

 probability, that it needs no confutation: and, after all, 

 perhaps, we must conclude, that, listened to, admired, and 

 pleasing, as the voices of many birds are, either for their 

 intrinsic melody, or from association, we are uncertain what 

 they express, or the object of their song. The singing of 

 most birds seems entirely a spontaneous effusion produced 

 by no exertion, or occasioning no lassitude in muscle, or 

 relaxation of the parts of action. In certain seasons and 

 weather, the nightingale sings all day, and most part of the 

 night; and we never observe that the powers of song are 

 weaker, or that the notes become harsh and untunable, 

 after all these hours of practice. The song-thrush, in a 

 mild moist April, will commence his tune early in the 

 morning, pipe unceasingly through the day, yet, at the 

 close of eve, when he retires to rest, there is no obvious 

 decay of his musical powers, or any sensible effort required 

 to continue his harmony to the last. Birds of one species 

 sing, in general, very like each other, with different degrees 

 of execution. Some countries may produce finer songsters, 

 but without great variation in the notes. In the thrush, 

 however, it is remarkable, that there seems to be no regu- 

 lar notes, each individual piping a voluntary of his own. 

 Their voices may always be distinguished amid the choris- 

 ters of the copse, yet some one performer will more particu- 

 larly engage attention by a peculiar modulation or tune; and 

 should several stations of these birds be visited in the same 

 morning, few or none probably will be found to preserve 

 the same round of notes; whatever is uttered, seeming the 

 effusion of the moment. At times a strain will break out 

 perfectly unlike any preceding utterance, and we may wait 

 a long time without noticing any repetition of it. During 

 one spring, an individual song-thrush, frequenting a favour- 

 ite copse, after a certain round of tune, trilled out most 

 regularly, some notes that conveyed so clearly the words, 

 lady -bird! lady-bird! that every one remarked the resem- 

 blance. He survived tlie winter, and in the ensuing season 

 the lady-bird! lady-bird! was still the burden of our even- 

 ing song; it then ceased, and we never heard this pretty 

 modulation more. Tliough merely an occasional strain, 

 yet I have noticed it elsewhere— it thus appearing to be a 

 favourite utterance. Harsh, strained, and tense, as the 

 notes of this bird are, yet they are pleasing from their 

 variety. The voice of the black-bird is infinitely more 

 mellow, but has much less variety, compass, or execution; 

 and he, too, commences his carols with the morning light, 

 persevering from hour to hour without effort, or any sensi- 

 ble faltering of voice. The cuckoo wearies us throughout 

 some long May morning, with the unceasing monotony of its 

 song; and, though there are others as vociferous, yet it is tlie 



only bird 1 know that seems to suffer from the use of the 

 organs of voice. Little exertion as the few notes it makes 

 use of, seem to require, yet, by the middle or end of June, 

 it loses its utterance, becomes hoarse, and ceases from any 

 further essay of it. The croaking of the nightingale in 

 June, or the end of May, is not apparently occasioned by 

 the loss of voice, but a change of note, a change of object; 

 his song ceases when his mate has hatched her brood; vigi- 

 lance, anxiety, caution, now succeed to harmony, and his 

 croak is the hush, the warning of danger or suspicion to 

 the infant charge and the mother bird. 



But here I must close my notes of birds, lest their actions 

 and their ways, so various and so pleasing, should lure me 

 on to protract 



"My tedious tale through many a page ;" 



for I have always been an. admirer of these elegant crea- 

 tures, their notes, their nests, their eggs, and all the eco- 

 nomy of their lives; nor have we throughout the orders of 

 creation, any beings that so continually engage our atten- 

 tion as these our feathered companions. Winter takes from 

 us all the gay world of the meads, the sylphs that hover 

 over our flowers, that steal our sweets, that creep, or 

 gently wing their way in glittering splendour around us; 

 and of all the miraculous creatures that sported their hour 

 in the sunny beam, the winter gnat alone remains to 

 frolic in some rare and partial gleam. The myriads of 

 the pool are dormant, or hidden from our sight; the quad- 

 rupeds, few and wary, veil their actions in the glooms of 

 night, and we see little of them; but birds are with us 

 always, they give a character to spring, and are identified 

 with it; they enchant and amuse us all summer long with 

 their sports, animation, hilarity and glee; they cluster 

 round us, suppliant in the winter of our year, and, unre- 

 pining through cold and want, seek their scanty meal 

 amidst the refuse of the barn, the stalls of the cattle, or at 

 the doors of our house; or, flitting hungry from one de- 

 nuded and bare spray to. another, excite our pity and 

 regard; their lives are patterns of gaiety, cleanliness, ala- 

 crity, and joy. — Jour, of a Natui alist. 



ANTS AND ANT-BEARS 



OF SOUTH AMERICA. 



In the far extending wilds of Guiana, the traveller will 

 be astonished at the immense quantity of Ants which he 

 perceives on the ground and in the trees. They have nests 

 in the branches, four or five times as large as tliat of the 

 rook; and they have a covered way from them to the 



