BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 79 



caged thrush hved for years in a butcher's shop, 

 and poured out its song continuously, the most 

 distressing throstle performance I ever heard, 

 composed of a medley of loud, shrill, and harsh 

 sounds — limitations of screams and shouts, boy 

 whistlers, saw filing, knives sharpened on steels, 

 and numerous other unclassifiable noises, but all 

 more or less painful. The whole street was filled 

 with the noise, and the owner used to boast that his 

 caged thrush was the most persistent as well as the 

 loudest singer that had ever been heard. He had no 

 nerves, and was proud of it ! On a recent visit to 

 Seaford I failed to hear the bird when walking 

 about the town, and after two or three days went 

 into the shop to enquire about it. They told me it 

 was dead — ^that it had been dead over a year ; also 

 that many visitors to Seaford had missed its song 

 and had called at the shop to ask about the bird. 

 The strangest thing about its end, they said, was its 

 suddenness. The bird was singing its loudest one 

 morning and had been at it for some time, filling 

 the whole place with its noise, when suddenly in 

 the middle of its song it dropped down dead from 

 its perch. 



To drop dead while singing is not an unheard-of 

 nor a very rare occurrence in caged birds, and it 

 probably happens too in birds living their natural 

 life. Listening to a nightingale pouring out its 



