I883J 
Analyses of Books, 
423 
Longman's Magazine. May, 1883. 
In this issue we notice a pleasantly-written article entitled “ An 
American’s Impressions of some British Song-Birds.” The 
writer, Mr. John Burroughs, is an able and enthusiastic observer 
of bird-life, and puts on record some points which our British 
ornithologists seem to have overlooked. He is particularly struck 
with the abundance and the eager vociferation of the chaffinch, 
or, as it is locally called, shilfa, flax-finch, flacky, or spink. He 
says “ the most abundant song-bird in Britain is the chaffinch, 
the most conspicuous wild flower (in June at least) is the fox- 
glove, and the most ubiquitous weed is the nettle.” The first of 
these three assertions I fully admit ; but as to the foxglove we 
could show Mr. Burroughs districts where it is entirely wanting. 
The author writes : — “ I could well understand, after being in 
England for a few days, why to English travellers our songsters 
seem inferior to their own. They are much less loud and voci- 
ferous, less abundant and familiar ; one needs to woo them more ; 
they are less recently out of the wilderness ; their songs have 
the delicacy and wildness of most woodsey forms, and are as 
plaintive as the whistle of the wind. They are not so happy a 
race as the English songsters, as if life had more trials for them, 
as doubtless it has in their enforced migrations and in the severer 
climate with which they have to contend.” 
The comparative happiness of birds on either side of the 
Atlantic is a difficult question ; but what with nest-robbing 
urchins, with bird-catchers, and town sportsmen, — three classes 
ever to be anathematised by the ornithologist, — our British song- 
sters have but a hard life. 
The following is a curious and interesting remark : — “ I was 
soon struck with the faCt that in the main the British song-birds 
lead up to and culminate in two species — namely, in the lark and 
the nightingale. In these two birds all that is characteristic in 
the other songsters is gathered up and carried to perfection. 
They crown the series. Nearly all the finches and pipits seem 
like rude studies and sketches of the sky-lark, and nearly all the 
warblers and thrushes point to the nightingale ; their powers 
have fully blossomed in her. There is nothing in the lark’s song, 
in the quality or in the manner of it, that is not sketched or 
suggested in some voice lower in the choir, and the tone and 
compass of the warblers mount in regular gradation from the 
clinking note of the chiffchaff up to the nightingale.” 
Mr. Burroughs gives a favourable estimate of the blackbird, 
the willow-warbler, the wren, and the robin. The wood-lark he 
sought in vain, and we have taken good care that he should not 
hear the golden oriole, which once was ours. 
On hearing the European cuckoo he regrets that he had ever 
heard a cuckoo-clock. These devices, extremely rare in England, 
