OTHER WINTER NOTES. 
365 
that there are some birds never classed with songsters 
but yet having utterances indicative perhaps of the 
same feelings with those which lead to harmonious 
songs, which deliver their notes the year through, save 
on occasions of stormy, rainy, and very inclement 
weather; thus Owls hoot every night when fine, and 
Woodpeckers continue to laugh through every month 
of the year, having however a more imperfect kind 
of note during autumn and winter than at other 
seasons. Again many kinds of birds preserve their 
songs or notes through spring, summer, and autumn, 
and desist on the arrival of severe weather as no¬ 
ticed in the Ox-eye ; some of these species observe 
regular alterations in their note or song according 
to season,"as we find in the Nuthatch. Whether 
these alterations and defective deliveries above 
mentioned depend on some organic changes in the 
larynx, or on altered feelings, cannot exactly be de¬ 
termined, but the probability rests in a belief that 
both circumstances operate and for the most part 
separately in different kinds. Little doubt for 
instance can exist as to the altered laugh of the 
Green Woodpecker in winter being dependant on 
diminished power of execution, and little doubt can 
exist that the spring and autumnal songs of the 
Robin depend for their difference on some altered 
disposition or sentiment. Leaving however tem¬ 
porary organic defect out of the question, it may be 
suitable to the present argument, and be found 
accordant with the general views of philosophy, to 
remember here, that each species of bird has habits 
ceconomy, temperament, and general constitution 
in great measure isolated and separate from all 
Others, and that consequently that part of their 
history which concerns expression of feeling, will 
likewise be in each case different, and incapable to 
some extent of being brought under the trammels 
of given, arbitrary rules. 
