English Song Birds 
By 'Theodore Roosevelt 
L IKE most Americans interested in 
birds and books, I know a good 
deal about English birds as they 
appear in books. I know the lark of 
Shakespeare and Shelley and the Ettrick 
Shepherd; I know the nightingale of 
Milton and Keats ; I know Wordsworth’s 
cuckoo ; I know mavis and merle sing¬ 
ing in the merry green wood of the old 
ballads; I know Jenny Wren and Cock 
Robin of the nursery books. Therefore 
I have always much desired to hear the 
birds in real life; and the opportunity 
offered last June. As I could snatch but 
a few hours from a very exacting round 
of pleasures and duties, it was necessary 
for me to be with some companion who 
could identify both song and singer. In 
Sir Edward Grey, a keen lover of out¬ 
door life in all its phases, and a delightful 
companion, who knows the songs and 
ways of English birds as very few do know 
them, I found the best possible guide. 
We left London on the morning of June 
9, twenty-four hours before I sailed from 
Southampton. Getting off the train at 
Basingstoke, we drove to the pretty, smil¬ 
ing valley of the Itchen. Here we tramped 
for three or four hours, then again drove, 
this time to the edge of the New Forest, 
where we first took tea at an inn, and 
then tramped through the forest to an 
inn on its other side, at Brockenhurst. 
At the conclusion of our walk my com¬ 
panion made a list of the birds we had 
seen, putting an asterisk opposite those 
which we had heard sing. There were 
forty-one of the former and twenty-three 
of the latter, as follows : 
^Thrush, ^Blackbird, *Lark, ^Yellow 
Hammer, * Robin, *Wren, *Golden Crested 
Wren,*Goldfinch, # Chaffinch,*Greenfinch, 
Pied Wagtail, Sparrow, *Dunnock (Hedge 
Accentor), Missel Thrush, Starling, Rook, 
Jackdaw, *Black Cap, ^Garden Warbler, 
* Willow Warbler, *Chiff Chaff, *Wood 
Warbler, *Tree Creeper, *Reed Bunting, 
*Sedge Warbler, Coot, Water Hen, Little 
Grebe (Dabchick), Tufted Duck, Wood 
Pigeon, Stock Dove, ^Turtle Dove, Pee- 
014 
wit, Tit (? Coal Tit), ^Cuckoo, ^Nightjar, 
^Swallow, Martin, Swift, Pheasant, Par¬ 
tridge. 
The valley of the Itchen is typically the 
England that we know from novel and 
story and essay. It is very beautiful in 
every way, with a rich, civilized, fertile 
beauty—the rapid brook twisting among 
its reed beds, the rich green of trees and 
grass, the stately woods, the gardens and 
fields, the exceedingly picturesque cot¬ 
tages, the great handsome houses standing 
in their parks. Birds were plentiful ; I 
know but few places in America where 
one would see such an abundance of indi¬ 
viduals, and I was struck by seeing such 
large birds as coots, water hens, grebes, 
tufted ducks, pigeons, and peewits. In 
places in America as thickly settled as the 
valley of the Itchen, I should not expect 
to see any like number of birds of this 
size ; but I hope that the efforts of the 
Audubon societies and kindred organiza¬ 
tions will gradually make themselves felt 
until it becomes a point of honor not only 
with the American man, but with the 
American small boy, to shield and protect 
all forms of harmless wild life. True 
sportsmen should take the lead in such a 
movement, for if there is to be any shoot¬ 
ing there must be something to shoot; 
the prime necessity is to keep, and not kill 
out, even the birds which in legitimate 
numbers may be shot. 
The New Forest is a wild, uninhabited 
stretch of heath and woodland, many of 
the trees gnarled and aged, and its very 
wildness, the lack of cultivation, the rug¬ 
gedness, made it strongly attractive in my 
eyes, and suggested my own country. 
The birds of course were much less 
plentiful than beside the Itchen. 
The bird that most impressed me on 
my walk was the blackbird. I had already 
heard nightingales in abundance near 
Lake Como, and had also listened to larks, 
but I had never heard either the blackbird, 
the song thrush, or the black cap warbler ; 
and while I knew all three were good 
singers, I did not know what really beau- 
