32 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
all. It is true that there are thousands, nay, 
millions of things — sights and sounds and per- 
fumes — which are or may be described as sweet, 
so common is the metaphor, and this too common 
use has perhaps somewhat degraded it ; but in this 
case there is no other word so well suited to describe 
the sensation produced. 
The tree pipit has a comparatively short song, 
repeated, with some variation in the number and 
length of the notes, at brief intervals. The opening 
notes are thick or throaty, and similar in character 
to the throat-notes of many other species in this 
group, a softer sound than the throat-notes of the 
skylark and woodlark, which they somewhat 
resemble. But the concluding notes of the song 
I am considering — which is only one note repeated 
again and again — are clear and beautifully inflected, 
and have that quality of sweetness, of lusciousness, 
I have mentioned. The note is uttered with a 
downward fall, more slowly and expressively at 
each repetition, as if the singer felt overcome at 
the sweetness of life and of his own expression, 
and languished somewhat at the close ; its elfect is 
like that of the perfume of the honeysuckle, infect- 
inor the mind with a soft delicious lano^uor, a wish 
to lie perfectly still and drink of the same sweet- 
ness again and again in larger measure. 
To some who are familiar with this by no means 
