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thrush. 
the treacherous Saxons or the Norman adventurers had 
touched the soil. 
As for the note, that man car. have no music in his soul 
who does not love the song of the Throstle. Who would 
not stand still to listen to it in the tranquil summer evening, 
and look for the place of the vocalist? Presently you will 
discover the delightful bird pouring forth his lay from the 
top of some neighbouring tree; you will see his throat swelling 
with his love song, and hear it you may, if you choose to 
linger, till sable night casts her dark mantle on all around, 
and wraps the face of nature in the shroud. Begun with the 
dawn of day, the Mavis has continued his clear and liquid 
notes at intervals till now that evening has come, when he 
must sing his evening hymn, and remind you of your own 
orisions to the Great Creator. The calm eventide is the 
hour at which he most delights to sing, and rich and eloquent 
then, as alwaj^s, are his strains. Uninterruptedly he warbles 
the mellifluous and harmonious sounds, which now rise in 
strength, and now fall in measured cadences, filling your ear 
with the ravishing melody, and now die away so soft and low, 
that they are scarcely audible. If you alarm him, you break 
the charm; he will suddenly cease, and silently drop into the 
underwood beneath. 
Each modulation consists of four or five syllables, each 
repeated from three or four to seven times, and then changed 
for another movement. They are uttered more slowly or more 
rapidly at different times, and the tones are sometimes so 
varied, that they might be supposed to proceed from different 
birds, at different distances from the listener. Meyer also 
mentions that he has heard the chant of the Nightingale 
successfully imitated. Two birds at a distance will often 
answer to each other in ‘Strophe’ and ‘Antistrophe,’ the one 
beginning when the other ceases; and several may often be 
heard singing together in concert at one and the same time. 
The Thrush begins to sing in the very earliest part of the 
year, even in January or February, according to the season, 
and has been heard so soon as the third of the former month: 
even the heaviest rain does not stop its lay. Those to whose 
ears the voice of the Throstle is familiar, and before whose 
minds the recollection of their school days brings the name 
fLudovique Desprez,’ will be able to appreciate the suggestion 
of a similitude of that date between the sweet note of the 
