252 
ON THE SMALLER BRITISH BIRDS, 
enumeration we may have omitted the names of a few birds that sing in 
February; but we believe that one common and justly admired native chorister, 
the Garden Ouzel (Merula hortensis)^ never sings before the warm weather is 
regularly set in, and even then it is among the latest to commence, being usually 
first heard during one of those delightful sunny showers peculiar to, and so 
frequent in, April, and it is on those refreshing evenings that its deep rich 
melody sounds so charmingly in the yet leafless groves. We have elsewhere 
observed—what has hitherto been overlooked by most naturalists—that many 
birds which have been silent throughout a fair day, will immediately begin to 
sing when a shower of rain comes on. The Missel Thrush, it is well known, 
will pipe away merrily in the midst of a snow-storm, and a shower of rain at the 
close of a July evening, is sure to set all the Garden Ouzels in the neighbour¬ 
hood singing. 
It is also a curious, and in some measure a well-known feet, that some birds 
will sing late at night when a stone is thrown into the bush where they are 
roosting, or if any loud noise is made in the vicinity. Many of our readers are 
doubtless familiar with the circumstance as regards the Sedge Reedling (Sali- 
caria phragmitisJ, but it is commonly believed that the Nightingale will not 
sing if a disturbance is made in the neighbourhood of its asylum. There cannot 
be a greater mistake than this ; for we have repeatedly ascertained that on some 
of those dark windy nights in which Philomefs luscious strains are rarely heard 
under ordinary circumstances, it might be roused by the striking of the Hall 
clock, the shutting of a gate, or any other loud noise. We have likewise known 
the Robin Redbreast strike up its note on hearing the rumbling of carriage-wheels 
approach the tree on which it was resting, at eleven o’clock at night. 
But what appears to have as much effect upon the song, and indeed upon the 
whole economy, of birds, as any thing else, is wind. The most hardy native 
birds, which have braved the severity of our coldest winters, as the little Wren, 
the Tits, &c., look miserably starved and uncomfortable on a windy day; and 
so soon as the boisterous March winds visit us, every throat is silent; as long as 
they continue, moreover, not one of the birds which we have mentioned as 
singing in February, is ever heard. Indeed wind seems to cause a complete stag¬ 
nation in the ornithological world; and although we are not aware of its causing 
the death of even one of the most delicate species, yet it seems so unfavourable 
to activity, that, so far from enjoying their accustomed frolics, birds are often 
barely able to obtain a subsistence sufficient to keep them in “ good case.” 
During the March winds the smaller birds betake themselves, as much as possi¬ 
ble, to the sheltered lowlands; and though herbage is at that season everywhere 
scarce, yet the practiced ornithologist well knows that he will add comparatively 
little to his knowledge in his favourite line, at this time. 
