June 24, 1891
England.
(no 5)
Chester. - At the height of the bird concert this
evening I was struck by two points of difference
between what I heard and what one would hear
under similar conditions in almost any part
of America. The first is that while there were
quite as many birds singing at once as one
would be likely to hear anywhere at home the
number of species represented was very much less.
Thrushes, Blackbirds, Chiff chaff, Wren (?), Chaffinch (?)
and two or three (not more) unknown. The Thrushes
and Blackbirds made up fully three fourths of
the choir. The second point of difference is that all
the voices were loud and ringing. There were
none, for example, which could be fairly compared
with those of our Virios and Warblers, no low
soft trills or warbles, nothing of the spiritual
character such as is represented by the song of our
Hermit Thrush and Bachman's Finch.
  A roughly dressed man whom I met told
me much about the birds of the region. He
says there are no Nightingales. One was reported
last year in some woods near an inn not far
from Chester and hundreds of people went
to hear it but at length it transpired that
the innkeeper had hired a man who could
imitate the bird very closely and this fellow
night after night concealed himself in the
top of a dense tree and delighted the numerous
people who were taken to the place to
hear the rare bird.