﻿VOICE. 



167 



are in general silent ; and it would be strange, indeed, 

 if they were not, seeing that the greatest part of our 

 song birds have taken their departure ! Had a little 

 further inquiry been made, there are many travellers 

 who could have told BufFon, that in more genial climates, 

 and especially between the tropics, the forests resound 

 all the year round with the notes of birds, both before 

 and after the season of incubation, while the autumnal 

 song of the robin, long after that period, refutes the 

 idea that birds do not naturally indulge themselves in 

 this delightful harmony except in the season of court- 

 ship. The faculty, in short, is indicative of general 

 pleasure, for we see it exerted at all seasons by canaries 

 and other birds kept in cages, where food and warmth 

 is provided. It is, of course, most apparent, in our 

 latitudes, in the spring, when all nature seems to burst 

 again into life, and the instinct of reproduction pervades 

 both the vegetable and the animal world. Whether or 

 not the power has been given more especially to the 

 male, for the purpose of attracting the female, in the 

 first instance, may be a matter of doubt ; but that this 

 faculty is intended to solace her during the long, and 

 otherwise tedious, period of incubation, cannot be ques- 

 tioned. Few persons are aware that the common house 

 swallow has one of the most varied and long continued 

 songs of all those birds which come to us in summer. 

 A pair of these have now for four years built their nest 

 within three yards of our study window, and while the 

 female is sitting, the male perches on an adjacent 

 prominence, and continues to solace her, and please 

 himself, at frequent intervals, all the day long. Our 

 little wren, on the other hand, seems to send forth his 

 quick and sharp song in the spring, from the mere 

 overflow of animal spirits, and at times when he is 

 completely alone, and flitting from hedge to thicket in 

 search of insects. 



(143.) To attempt the description of the different 

 modes of singing, or more properly of the different 

 languages of birds, is quite impossible, even would our 

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