300 
VOICES OF BIRDS. 
exceptions, only during the season of incubation. 
Hence the comparative quietness of our summer months, 
when this care is over, except from accidental causes, 
where a second nest is formed, few of our birds bringing 
up more than one brood in the season. The redbreast, 
blackbird, and thrush, in mild winters, may continually 
be heard, and form exceptions to the general procedure 
of our British birds ; and we have one little bird, the 
wood lark, ( alauda arboreal) that, in the early parts 
of the autumnal months, delights us with its harmony, 
and its carols may be heard in the air commonly during 
the calm sunny mornings of this season. They have a 
softness and quietness perfectly in unison with the 
sober, almost melancholy, stillness of the hour. The 
skylark also sings now, and its song is very sweet, full 
of harmony, cheerful as the blue sky and gladdening 
beam in which it circles and sports, and known and 
admired by all ; but the voice of the woodlark is local, 
not so generally heard — from its softness must almost 
be listened for to be distinguished, and has not any 
pretensions to the hilarity of the former. This little 
bird sings likewise in the spring ; but, at that season, 
the contending songsters of the grove, and the variety 
of sound proceeding from every thing that has utterance, 
confuse and almost render inaudible the placid voice of 
the woodlark. It delights to fix its residence near 
little groves and copses, or quiet pastures, and is a very 
unobtrusive bird, not uniting in companies, but asso- 
ciating in its own little family parties only, feeding in 
the woodlands on seeds and insects. Upon the approach 
of man it crouches close to the ground, then suddenly 
darts away, as if for a distant flight, but settles again 
almost immediately. This lark will often continue its 
song, circle in the air, a scarcely visible speck, by the 
hour together; and the vast distance from which its 
voice reaches us in a calm day is almost incredible. 
In the scale of comparison it stands immediately below 
the nightingale in melody and plaintiveness, but compass 
of voice is given to the linnet, a bird of very inferior 
powers. The strength of the larynx, and of the 
