Getting Ready 1 1 



nature; yet the bird is very much in earnest, for 

 much of the coming season's happiness may depend 

 on the results of this persistent practice. 



Why the Chaffinch should stand almost alone 

 among birds in the trouble he has -with his song, is 

 more than I can explain ; I know at present but one 

 other whose song is not almost perfect from the first 

 day of singing. If I am to make a guess, it would be 

 that this bird's song is curiously stereotyped to a 

 particular form, which needs an effort each time it 

 is gone through, and that to get it perfect a fair 

 amount of warmth and bodily vigour is necessary ; 

 while others, whose musical range is more elastic, can 

 accommodate their voices to their bodily condition 

 without producing ludicrous results. And I may 

 call the Yellow-hammer as a witness to my theory ; 

 for he, whose song is also stereotyped in one mould 

 — that which is familiar to us all as " a little bit of 

 bread and no cheese," — will rarely bring out his 

 " cheese " in his first spring effort, and is at all times 

 liable to drop it, if he be in a lazy or melancholy 

 mood. 



Other birds are singing — Thrushes, Eobins, Dun- 

 nocks, "Wrens, Greenfinches; whose voices, already 

 perfect in execution, need no comment in this 

 chapter. Let us notice what else is getting ready, 

 in these fields that slope down to the brook. The 

 Starlings seem to be in a state of transition, as be- 



