146 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



among the bushes, pausing at intervals to listen to 

 some new note ; or to hide myself and sit or lie 

 motionless in the middle of a thicket, until the 

 birds forgot or ceased to be troubled at my pre- 

 sence. The common resident mocking-bird was 

 always present, each bird sitting motionless on the 

 topmost spray of his favourite thorn, at intervals 

 emitting a few notes, a phrase, then listening to 

 the others. 



But there was one bitter drop in my sweet 

 cup. It vexed my mind and made me almost 

 unhappy to think that travellers and naturalists 

 from Eui'ope, whose works were known to me, 

 were either silent or else said veiy little (and 

 that mostly depreciatory) of the bird music that 

 was so much to me. Darwin's few words were 

 especially remembered and rankled most in my 

 mind, because he was the greatest and had 

 given a s'ood deal of attention to bird life in 

 southern South America. The highest praise 

 that he gave to a Patagonian songster was that it 

 had "two or three pleasant notes;" and of the 

 Calandria mocking-bird, one of the finest melodists 

 in La Plata, he wrote that it was nearly the only 

 bird he had seen in South America that regularly 

 took its stand for the purpose of singing ; that it 

 was remarkable for possessing a song superior to 

 that of any other kind, aud ilud its song resembled 

 that oftliii seihje warbler! 



Speaking of British species, I do not think it 

 could be rightly said that the song of the sedge 



