344 
APPENDIX. VI. 
The food of singing birds consists of plants, — 
insects, or seeds, and of the two first of these 
there is infinitely the greatest profusion in the 
spring. 
As for seeds, w high are to be met with only’ 
in the autumn, I think they cannot well find 
any great quantities of them in a country so 
cultivated as England is; for the seeds in mea- 
dows are destroyed by mowing; in pastures, 
by the bite of the cattle; and in arable, by 
the plough, when most of them are buried too 
deep for the bird to reach them.* 
I know well that the singing of the cock-bird 
in the spring is attributed by manyf to the 
motive only of pleasing its mate during incu- 
bation. 
They, however, who suppose this, should 
recollect, that much the greater part of birds 
do not sing at all: why should their mate 
therefore be deprived of this solace and amuse- 
ment? 
The bird in a cage, which, perhaps, sings 
nine or ten months in a year, cannot do so from 
this inducement; and, on the contrary, it arises 
* The plough indeed may turn up some few seeds, which 
may still be in an eatable state. 
t+ See, amongst others, M. de Buffon, in his lately-published 
Omithology. 
