THE UNIVERSAL FAMILY PAPER OF 



-THIMS 



Conducted, by WILLIAM KIDD, of Hammersmith,— 



Author of the Familiar and Popular Essays on "Natural History;" "British Song 

 Birds; " "Birds of Passage;" "Instinct and Reason;" "The Aviary," &c. 



"the OBJECT OF OUR WORK is to make men WISER, without obliging them to turn over folios and 



QUARTOS.— TO FURNISH MATTER FOR THINKING AS WELL AS READING."— EVELYN. 



No. 20.— 1852. 



SATURDAY, MAY 15. 



Price l$d. 



Or, in Monthly Parts, Price Id. 



NATUBAL HISTOBY OF SONG BIRDS. 

 No. III.— THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 



'Tis love creates their melody, and all 



This waste of music is the voice of love; 



That, even to birds, the tender arts 



Of pleasing teaches. Thomson, 



Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? 

 Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. 



Pope. 



When we observe birds in their wild and 

 free state, we perceive that the voice is not 

 only modified by their affections, but that it 

 is renewed, strengthened, changed, or extin- 

 guished, according to these, and the tem- 

 perature of the season. As the voice, of 

 all their faculties, is most easy, and least 

 troublesome in its exercise, they ply it with 

 a frequency that seems to border on excess ; 

 nor is it the females, as we might believe, 

 that are most remarkable for the abuse of 

 this organ, since among birds they are more 

 grave and silent than the males. Like the 

 cattle, they utter cries of fear or of sorrow ; 

 they express solicitude and concern for their 

 young ; but to the far greater number, nature 

 seems to have denied the gift of song. The 

 singing of the feathered race seems to be 

 the expression of their happiness, and of 

 their soft and agreeable emotions ; by these 

 circumstances it is produced ; with these it 

 varies ; and when they cease, it is extin- 

 guished. The nightingale, on his first arrival 

 in Spring, begins to sing: but his song at 

 first is short, hesitating, and infrequent : he 

 ventures not a full, loud, and well supported 

 note, till he sees his female charged with the 

 fruits of his love. During the whole period 

 of nestling, laying, and incubation, he grows 

 more and more assiduous in his caresses, 

 and endeavors to relieve her cares by every 

 charm of song. The female has no sooner 

 begun to hatch, which is towards the end of 

 June, than the male becomes silent. 



A contemporary writer, comparing the 

 songs of nature with those of the opera, 

 beautifully observes : — " The opera- singer 



sings to please the audience, not herself, 

 and does not always like to be encored in it ; 

 but the thrush, that awakes at daybreak with 

 its song, does not sing because it is paid to 

 sing or to please others, or to be admired or 

 criticised. It sings because it is happy : it 

 pours the thrilling sounds from its throat, to 

 relieve the overflowings of its own heart : the 

 liquid notes come from and go to the heart, 

 dropping balm into it, as the gushing spring 

 revives the traveller's parched and fainting 

 lips. That stream of joy comes pure and 

 fresh to the longing sense, free from art and 

 affectation ; the same that rises over vernal 

 groves, mingled with the breath of morning, 

 and the perfumes of the wild hyacinth, that 

 waits for no audience, that wants no re- 

 hearsing, that exhausts its raptures, and 

 still 



Hymns its good God, and carols sweet of love. 



What lover of nature's music, but is 

 charmed with the various notes and modula • 

 tions of our English singing birds? The 

 mellowness of the throstle ; — the cheerful- 

 ness of the skylark ; — the imitative talent of 

 the bullfinch ;— the varied and familiar lan- 

 guage of the red-breast, endeared to us, from 

 our youth, by so many agreeable associa- 

 tions ; the vivacity of the wren, forming her 

 nest with dry leaves and moss, among hedges 

 and shrubs encircled with ivy ; — the solemn 

 cry of the owl; — and the soft note of the 

 linnet ; — not one of these birds but is listened 

 to with pleasure— 



Oh, happy commoners! 

 That haunt in woods, in meads, in flowery 



gardens, 

 Rifle the sweets and taste the choicest fruits, 

 Yet scorn to ask the lordly owners' leave ! 



In general, it may be remarked that every 

 species of birds has peculiar modulations of 

 voice expressive of love, of pain, of anxiety, 

 of anger, of complacency, and of good or 

 bad fortune : these expressions, however, 

 seem to be confined and intelligible to the 



Vol. I. -New Series. 



