BIRDS AND POETRY. 
443 
seeds of fir, larch, and spruce, are ripening. Thoroughly 
to estimate the beauty of the woodland in winter, one 
must assemble together, in the mind’s eye, the following 
winter tints dark green, white, brown, red, and silver- 
gray—which make the picture so lovely. One must have 
seen for oneself the forest, when the sky has been without 
a single cloud, and the sun throws his brilliant rays upon 
this fairy palace,—these mighty pillared halls, their roofs 
festooned with diamonds and emeralds,—to be able to 
appreciate the beauty of the scene. The blaze of light, 
glitter, and sheen, cannot be surpassed by a summer 
forest scene ! And yet the true life is wanting. Conscious 
that something is wanting, the eye wanders instinctively, 
seeking from tree-top to tree-top, until joyfully it catches 
sight of some lively little Titmouse, or the tiny, all-but 
silent Goldcrest, who still remain in the winter forest; and 
charmed, follows every movement of the Crossbill, which 
is breeding at this dead season of the year. 
The true life in the forest awakens with the song of its 
first herald, namely, the tuneful Throstle, to which 
Welcker has given the name of “ Forest Nightingale” in 
one of his most charming poems. The poet is right, too, 
to assign to this songster so high a rank, though all 
other woodland voices deserve their meed of praise. Not 
one of them can be spared from the forest; it would 
otherwise render the concert, which they give us in 
common, incomplete, for it seems to us as though each 
bird had its allotted “part.” Song Thrush, Nightingale, 
Whitethroat, Blackcap, Bedstart, Redbreast, Willow 
Wren, Wren, Goldcrest, Flycatcher, Chaffinch, Linnet, 
Greenfinch, Yellowhammer, Tree Pipit, Wood Lark, 
Tree-creeper, and Titmouse: these sing the old and yet 
ever new, long familiar though ever changing, melody,— 
