BIRDS AT THEIR BEST 27 



It hath caught a touch of sadness. 



Yet it is not sad ; 

 It hath tones of clearest gladness, 



Yet it is not 



Again, that foreign song is composed of many 

 notes, and is poured out in a stream, as a sky- 

 lark sings ; and it is also singular on account of 

 the contrast between these notes which suggest 

 human feeling and a purely metallic, beU-hke 

 sound, which, coming in at intervals, has the effect 

 of the triangle in a band of wind-instruments. 

 The image of this beautiful song is as distinct in 

 my mind as that of the blackbird which I heard 

 every day last summer from every green place. 



Doubtless there are some and perhaps a good 

 many ornithologists among us who have been 

 abroad to observe the bird life of distant countries, 

 and who when at home find that the sound-im- 

 pressions they have received are not persistent, or, 

 if not whoUy lost, that they grow faint and indis- 

 tinct, and become increasingly difficult to recall. 

 They can no longer listen to those over-sea notes 

 and songs as they can, mentally, to the cuckoo's 

 caU in spring, the wood-owl's hoot, to the song 

 of the skylark and of the tree-pipit, the reeling 



