304 
VOICES OF BIRDS. 
probably will be found to preserve the same round f 
notes ; whatever is uttered seeming the effusion of V? 
moment. At times a strain will break out perfefW 
unlike any preceding utterance, and we may wait 
long time without noticing any repetition of it. Durw| 
one spring an individual song thrush, frequenting , 
favourite copse, after a certain round of time, trim, 
out most regularly some notes that conveyed so clear*-, 
the words, lady-bird ! lady-bird that every 
remarked the resemblance. He survived the winff , 
and in the ensuing season the lady-bird! lady-bd 
was still the burden of our evening song; it t* lC . 
ceased, and we never heard this pretty modulation in° j 
Though merely an occasional strain, yet I have not> cC 
it elsewhere ; it thus appearing to be a favourite utt® 
ance. Harsh, strained, and tense as the notes of l? 1 ’ 
bird are, yet they are pleasing from their variety. '* [ 
voice of the blackbird is infinitely more mellow, ® j 
has much less variety, compass, or execution ; 
he, too, commences his carols with the morning lift "j 
persevering from hour to hour without effort, or 
sensible faltering of voice. The cuckoo wearies,"’ 
throughout some long May morning with the unceai 1 ®” 
monotony of its song ; and though there are others ’ 
vociferous, yet it is the only bird I know that se«Jr 
to suffer from the use of the organs of voice. Lm* 
exertion as the few notes it makes use of seem ; 
require, yet, by the middle or end of June, it lose* ' 
utterance, becomes hoarse, and ceases from any farm 
essay of it. The croaking of the nightingale in J#" 
or the end of May, is not apparently occasioned by f " , 
loss of voice, but a change of note — a change of obje®,! 
his song ceases when his mate has hatched her broo ’ 
vigilance, anxiety, caution, now succeed to harnio'ff 
and his croak is the hush, the warning of danger 
suspicion to the infant charge and the mother bird- . 
“ But here I must close my notes of birds, lest tn® 
actions and their ways, so various and so pleasm?’ 
should lure me on to protract 
My tedious tale through many a page ; 
