360 
SONGS OF BIRDS. 
sations of the ordinary heat, or rather we have an 
extraordinary and general mildness of air at the 
times when it should least be looked for. Whether 
this is a peculiarity in the climate of South Devon, 
or usually observed through the southern coasts of 
England, I am not enabled to determine; but the 
fact is certain that while some parts of our winter 
are excessively inclement, other and the larger 
portions are equally temperate, agreeable, and 
inviting. The Christmas of 1837 was as mild as 
many days of July are, but the middle of January 
1838 was intensely cold; frost killed plants in the 
windows of houses, it did great damage to hedges 
and old buildings, milk was frozen into solid masses, 
and the inlet called Stonehouse Pool was frozen 
over, and a fair held on it! With such extremities 
in climate, it were rational to expect phenomena 
of a remarkable nature in the animal world. By 
remarks made by me for several winters, it appears 
that brumal songsters, especially Blackbirds and 
Thrushes, were called into songduring those periods 
only, when the air was genial, the sun shining, and 
the whole face of nature for a while reanimated 
under these transient and deceptive smiles. I am 
not of course about to allude to the Robin, Wren, 
or Pledge-chanter, because these are known to sing 
at all times during winter, but the two above- 
named, the Skylark, Titlark, Missel Thrush, and 
Woodlark, (besides others not properly song birds) 
were those species in whom I remarked songs 
similar to those we are accustomed to hear delivered 
during spring and summer. 
Birds seem to me to be affected by stimuli very 
differently, and to feel the effects of the same 
stimuli very differently at different times. Black¬ 
birds are more readily induced to sing by these 
unseasonably fine days than Thrushes, they are 
also steadier in their continuance of song. Missel- 
