THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 
129 
by opening from it a sort of passage into which it 
can remove. 
Its call, also, is very different. It seems, also, to 
pronounce David, Jacob, and generally begins its 
song by the latter word/' 
It is said that this delightful songster, scorning to 
be outdone, will not yield to any competitor, either 
of birds or men, and that the wood-lark is its greatest 
antagonist, between whom there sometimes happens 
such a contention for mastery, each striving to outvie 
the other, that, like true-bred cocks, they seem re- 
solved to die rather than lose the victory. 
An old author, speaking of these contentions, re- 
lates the following amusing anecdote ; — " Myself," 
says he, " and a gentleman, riding in the country, in 
an evening, hard by a coppice or wood side, heard 
a nightingale sing so sweetly, as, to my thinking, I 
never heard the like in all my life, although I have 
heard many in my time ; for the place being in a 
valley, and the coppice on the side of it, made all the 
notes of the nightingale seem double with the echo. 
We had not stayed long, but comes a woodlark, and 
lights upon the twig of an oak, and there they sung, 
each outvying the other. In a short space more, 
