392 ENGLISH BIRD-LIFE 



it cannot be fairly made by either an American of English- 

 man. This is not a matter of prejudice, but of experience. 

 A bird's song is not to be judged as a musical composition. 

 It is an expression of nature and its significance is to be 

 measured by its associations. 



No Englishman can read Lowell's 



" The Bobolink has come, and like the soul 

 Of a sweet season vocal in a bird, 

 Gurgles in ecstacy we know not what 

 Save June ! Dear June ! now God be praised tor June." 



with the appreciation of the American who has grown up 

 witl i the Bobolink. Nor can Wordsworth's lines 



" O blithe new comer ! I have heard, 

 I hear thee and rejoice. 

 O Cuckoo ! Shall I call thee bird 

 Or but a wandering voice?" 



bring to the American that sense of returning spring which 

 they doubtless convey to the Englishman. 



The poets may, however, arouse the longing to see the 

 scenes and hear the birds which have inspired them and it 

 was with feelings of the keenest anticipation that I steamed 

 up St. George's Channel with the unexpectedly mountainous 

 coast of Ireland breaking the horizon to the west. A House 

 Martin, which had boarded the steamer in latitude 48°, 

 longitude 29°, when we were still nearly 1000 miles from 

 land ; and a pair of Wheatears and a Curlew which came 

 aboard 140 miles from Fastnet Light, had given us a sur- 

 prisingly early glimpse of British birds, and we were now 

 convoyed by a fleet of hungry Gulls which had joined us in 

 Queenstown harbor. 



As we approached the coast of Wales, we encountered 

 small companies of Murres and Puffins, which nest in cer- 

 tain small rocky islets or "stacks" off the neighboring 

 shore. To the ornithologist, the presence of these boreal 

 birds at this season, (May 25), was convincing evidence of 



