MELLOW ENGLAND. 



169 



I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground 

 Where thou may'st warble, eat, and dwell." 



It quite startled me to see such a resemblance, to 

 see, indeed, a black robin. In size, form, flight, man- 

 ners, note, call, there is hardly an appreciable differ- 

 ence. The bird starts up with the same flirt of the 

 wings, and calls out in the same jocund, salutatory 

 way, as he hastens off. The nest, of coarse mortar in 

 the fork of a tree, or in an out-building, or in the side 

 of a wall, is also the same. 



The bird I wished most to hear, namely, the nightin- 

 gale, had already departed on its southern journey. I 

 saw one in the Zoological Gardens in London, and took 

 a good look at him. He struck me as bearing a close 

 resemblance to our hermit-thrush, with something in 

 his manners that suggested the water-thrush also. Car- 

 lyle said he first recognized its song from the descrip- 

 tion of it in "Wilhelm Meister," and that it was a 

 " sudden burst," which is like the song of our water- 

 thrush. 



I have little doubt our songsters excel in melody, 

 while the European birds excel in profuseness and 

 volubility. I heard many bright, animated notes, and 

 many harsh ones, but few that were melodious. This 

 fact did not harmonize with the general drift of the rest 

 of my observations, for one of the first things that 

 strikes an American in Europe is the mellowness and 

 rich tone of things. The European is softer voiced 

 than the American and milder mannered, but the bird 

 voices seem an exception to this rule. 



