208 



N ATUR /VL n ISTORY 



curious observer that they whistle the year 

 round, hard frost excepted ; especially the 

 latter. 



It was not in my power to procure you a 

 black-cap, or a less reed-sparrow, or sedge- 

 bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, 

 and the last, as far as I can yet see, a Sum- 

 mer bird of passage, they would require 

 more nice and curious management in a 

 cage than 1 should be able to give them : 

 they are both distinguished songsters. The 

 note of the former has such a wild sweet- 

 ness that it always brings to my mind those 

 lines in a song in /^s You Like It.,'' 



" And tune his merry note 

 Unto the wild bh-d's throat." Shakespeare. 



The latter has a surprising variety of 

 notes resemblins^ the sonp' of several other 

 birds ; but then it has also an hurrying 

 manner, not at all to its advantage: it is 

 notwithstanding a delicate polyglot. 



It is new to me that titlarks in cages 

 sing in the night ; perhaps only caged birds 

 do so. I once knew a tame redbreast in a 

 cage that always sang as long as candles 



