ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS. 
with more confidence and copiousness, and 
as if they, too, had been touched by civiliza- 
tion. 
Then they sing more hours in the day, and 
more days in the year. This is owing to the 
milder and more equable climate. I heard 
the sky-lark singing above the South Downs 
in October, apparently with full spring fervor 
and delight. The wren, the robin, and the 
wood-lark sing throughout the winter, and in 
midsummer there are perhaps three times as 
many vocal throats as here. The heat and 
blaze of our midsummer sun silence most of 
our birds. 
There are but four songsters that I hear with 
any regularity after the meridian of summer is 
past, namely, the indigo-bird, the wood or 
bush sparrow, the scarlet tanager, and the 
red-eyed vireo, while White names eight or 
nine August songsters, though he speaks of 
the yellow-hammer only as persistent. His 
dictum, that birds sing as long as nidifica- 
tion goes on, is as true here as in England. 
Hence our wood-thrush will continue in 
song over into August if, as frequently hap- 
pens, its June nest has been broken up by 
the crows or squirrels. 
The British songsters are more vocal at 
night than ours. White says the grasshopper 
lark chirps ali night in the height of summer. 
The sedge-bird also sings the greater part of 
the night. A stone thrown into the bushes 
where it is roosting, after it has become silent, 
will set it going again. Other British birds, 
besides the nightingale, sing more or less at 
night. 
In this country the mocking-bird is the 
only regular night-singer we have. Other 
songsters break out occasionally in the middle 
of the night, but so briefly that it gives one 
the impression that they sing in their sleep. 
Thus I have heard the hair-bird, or chippie, 
the kingbird, the oven-bird, and the cuckoo, 
fitfully in the dead of the night, like a school- 
boy laughing in his dreams. 
On the other hand, there are certain aspects 
in which our songsters appear to advantage. 
That they surpass the European species in 
sweetness, tenderness, and melody I have no 
doubt, and that our mocking-bird, in his 
native haunts in the South, surpasses any bird 
in the world in compass, variety, and execu- 
tion is highly probable. That the total effect 
Vor, XXITI.—3o. 
361 
of his strain may be less winning and _per- 
suasive than the nocturne of the nightingale, is 
the only question in my mind about the rel- 
ative merits of the two songsters. Bring our 
birds together as they are brought together in 
England, all our shy wood-birds—like the 
hermit thrush, the veery, the winter wren, the 
wood wagtail, the water wagtail, the many 
warblers, the greenlet, the solitary vireo, etc. 
—become birds of the groves and orchards, 
and there would be a burst ofsong indeed. 
I append parallel lists of the better-known 
American and English song-birds, marking 
in each with an asterisk those that are proba- 
bly the better songsters ; followed by a list of 
other American songsters, some of which are 
not represented in the British avifauna : 
Old England. ew England. 
* Wood-lark. 
Song-thrush. 
Wren. 
Willow wren. 
* Red-breast. 
* Redstart. 
Hedge sparrow. 
Yellow-hammer. 
* Sky-lark. 
Swallow. 
* Blackcap. 
Titlark. 
* Blackbird. 
White-throat. 
Goldfinch. 
Green finch. 
Reed-sparrow. 
Linnet. 
Chaffinch. 
* Nightingale. 
Missal thrush. 
Great titmouse. 
Bulfinch. 
Meadow-lark. 
* Wood-thrush. 
* House-wren. 
* Winter wren. 
Bluebird. 
Redstart. 
* Song-sparrow. 
* Fox-sparrow. 
Bobolink. 
Swallow. 
Wood wagtail. 
Titlark (spring and fall). 
Robin. 
* Maryland yellow-throat. 
Goldfinch. 
* Wood-sparrow. 
* Vesper sparrow. 
* Purple finch. 
* Indigo-bird. 
Water wagtail. 
* Hermit thrush. 
Savanna sparrow. 
Chickadee. 
New England song-birds not included in the 
above: 
Red-eyed vireo. 
Orchard oriole. 
White-eyed vireo. Cat-bird. 
Brotherly love vireo. Brown thrasher. 
Solitary vireo. Chewink. 
Blue-headed vireo. 
Scarlet tanager. 
Baltimore oriole. 
Rose-breasted grosbeak. 
Purple martin. 
Mocking-bird. 
—besides a dozen or more species of the 
sylvicolide, or wood-warblers, some of which, 
like the black-throated green warbler, the 
speckled Canada warbler, the hooded warbler, 
and the mourning ground-warbler, and the 
yellow warbler, are fine songsters. 
