5810 Notes of a 



by hearing a single musical note, 'which, when I first heard it, at once 

 arrested my attention, announcing, by its full tone, a bird above the 

 average warbling size. Besides this note, they often utter a chirp 

 like that of the spotted flycatcher, and a hissing note resembling the 

 call of the redbreast, and these were sometimes succeeded by the first- 

 mentioned musical note. Indeed, I have often mistaken them for one 

 or other of these birds until this peculiar and characteristic note fol- 

 lowed. Besides these notes, the hawfinch, in the beginning of April, 

 has a low chattering song, which at a little distance sounds by no 

 means unlike that of the starling. 



The first bird I heard singing was the lark (Alauda arvensis), on a 

 fine morning on the second of March. A fortnight afterwards I read 

 the following paragraph in the £ Fremden Blatt' of March 15: — "The 

 first larks were remarked here on the 11th of this month, and every 

 place resounded with their spring song. It is singular that larks do 

 not sing out immediately on their arrival, but day by day successively 

 they raise themselves higher and higher in the air, singing a more and 

 more complete and sustained song, so that their instinct of song is 

 heightened the nearer they reach heaven." That they are migratory 

 there, is by no means improbable; and the notion of their gradual 

 improvement in song, though romantically expressed, is perhaps not 

 without its foundation in truth. 



Other birds, indigenous with us, succeeded, of which I shall pre- 

 sently give a list ; but I must first remark that on the 28th of March I 

 saw and heard a robin {Sylvia rubeculd) for the first time. This bird, 

 in the neighbourhood of Vienna at least, is rare ; and I had often 

 wondered at not seeing the red waistcoat and hearing the welcome 

 pipe of the friendly bird which redeems our winter. 



The following British residents took up their song as under : — 



Lark 



singing 



Chaffinch 



)) 



Great and Blue Tils 



» 



Thrush , 



» 



Robin 



•>•> 



Creeper 



» 



Ringdove 



cooing 



Blackbird ... 



singing 



Yellowhammer 



>> 



Turtle Dove 



cooing 



March 



2 



5J 



20 



5) 



25 



» 



28 



)> 



28 



5» 



30 



>5 



30 



April 



6 



» 



13 



May 



8 



The last I saw of fieldfares and redwings was on April 8th. 



The little chiffchaff made itself heard on April 3rd, and was soon 



