SINGING BIEDS. 
167 
{Merula Jamaicensis) pours forth a rich and continued 
song; and that mysterious harmonist, the Solitaire 
{Ptilogonys armillatus) utters his sweet but solemn 
trills, long-drawn and slow, like broken notes of a 
psalm, so perfectly in keeping with the deep solitude. 
In the woods that cover, as with an ever-verdant 
crown, the lower hills, the Black Shrike {Tityra leuco- 
notus) and the Cotton-tree Sparrow {Pyrrliula vio- 
laced) enunciate their clear musical calls, so much 
alike as scarcely to he distinguished; four or five 
notes running up the scale, so rapidly as to be fused 
as it were together, and suddenly falling at the end. 
Here, too, sits the Hopping Dick {Merula leucogenys), 
and whistles by the hour together a rich and mellow 
succession of wild notes, clear and fiute-like, like his 
European cousin, the Blackbird. The constantly 
reiterated call of the Bed-eyed Flycatcher {Vireosylva 
oUvacea), “ John to whip ! John to whip ! ” heard at 
different distances from all parts of the woods, makes 
their green glades lively ; and the loud varied voice 
of the White-eyed Flycatcher (Eireo Novehoracensis), 
sometimes soft and subdued, sometimes shrill and 
piercing, is always heard with pleasure. 
But birds are particularly social animals ; and it is 
chieffy in the neighbourhood of the presence of man, 
that their melodious voices are heard, as if to cheer 
him in his toil : the fields, and pastures, and meadows ; 
the hedges, and hedge-row trees, that border and 
map out his domains ; the orchards and groves that 
surround and embosom his dwellings, affording 
grateful fruit and shadow from the heat ; — these 
are the situations in every inhabited country that 
