The Scarcity of Song Thrushes. 63 



THE SCAEOITY OF SONG THRUSHES. 



I Lave never known Song' Thrushes so scarce as they 

 are at present, and have been during all the past year, 

 1880. I speak of my own neighbourhood. South Here- 

 fordshire, thought I have reason to believe it is the same 

 all over the country. Three summers ago, in my grounds, 

 I could hear two or three of these birds of song, — un- 

 matched, save by the nightingale, — singing at the same 

 time, and within a stone's throw of one another; and 

 singing all day long, from early morn till dewy eve, so 

 constantly and continuously I often wondered at vocal 

 powers that seemed never to fail or flag. But now all is 

 changed, and so changed ! The mellifluous notes of the 

 mavis are rarely heard ; and when heard it is in solitary 

 strain — but one bird singing within earshot, and that only 

 on occasional days. Nor is this the worst or strangest part 

 of it — still another change seeming to have come over the 

 thrush, making it parsimonious of its song. Instead of 

 the prolonged strain of former days, this year, whenever 

 and wherever I have heard it sing, there was but the 

 going over of its gamut two or three times, and all silence 

 for hours after ! 



This fact, for it is a fact so far as my observation extends 

 — and I have several times observed and been surprised 

 at it — courts inquiry as to its cause. Can it be because 

 the thrushes are so few in number, each pair with a wide ■ 

 field to themselves, that the cock bird, having no rival 

 near, and therefore no motive to make display of his pre- 

 eminence in song, is for this reason so sparing of it ? The 

 conjecture that such is the cause may seem ludicrous 

 — yet I can think of no other. And why may it not be 

 thus ? It is well known that caged birds sing better in 



