This charming species is widely spread, and has been traced eastward as far as Smyrna and Trebizond. It was evidently one of the birds that ministered to the absurd wantonness of the Roman voluptuaries in their olios of brains and tongues of singing birds. Even at the present day, as we learn from a distinguished ornithologist of that country, it is considered among the Italians as "molto grato agli Epicurei." The luscious grapes and figs on which it there feeds are said to impart a most exquisite flavour to its flesh, which seems well appreciated by the ex-maître d'hôtel of Pascal Bruno's friend, the Prince Butera, when the accomplished artist treats, with all the solemnity due to the high importance of the subject, of his Grives à la broche, au genièvre, and à la flamande. There is, it is true, no accounting for tastes, and we would speak with all reverence for discriminating palates; but some may think that all taste, save that for the pleasures of the table, must have vanished before the gourmand can sit down with gratification to his dish of Song Thrushes. The Throstle has been seen sitting on her eggs as early as the third week in January. The first brood, however, rarely makes its appearance before the beginning of April. The nest is generally hidden in the midst of some tall bush; green moss and delicate roots form the outside; and within it is coated with a thin smooth plastering, in which decayed wood is often an ingredient, so well laid on as to hold water for some time. In this cup-like receptacle the female deposits four or five eggs of a beautiful pale blue, scantily spotted with black at the larger end. It appears, from a contributor to Mr. Louden's "Magazine of Natural History"-where will be found many pleasant anecdotes of animals and much interesting zoological information, that both sexes participate in the duties of incubation. The author of the memoir alluded to, who watched the progress of the nest, states that, when all was finished, the cock took his share of the hatching, but he did not sit so long as the hen, though he often fed her while she was upon the nest. The young were out of the shells, which the old ones carried off, by the thirteenth day. The "Ousel Cock" may be thought too common to require notice; and yet some of our readers may not be aware that, glorying in its prodigality of voice and revelling in its mimicry, it has been known to crow like a cock and cackle like a hen. The power and quality of tone of the blackbird is first-rate, and for these he is justly more celebrated than for execution or variety of notes. His clear, mellow, fluty pipe is first heard in the early spring, and his song is continued far into the year, till the time of The Prince of Canino and Musignano. † In "Le Cuisinier des Cuisiniers." moulting. He rejoices in the moist vernal weather, and is heard to the greatest advantage when "The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard, By those who wander through the forest walks.” The thickest bush is generally selected for the nest, which is matted externally with coarse roots, and strong, dry grass stalks or bents, plastered and mixed internally with earth, so as to form a kind of cob-wall. Fine grass stalks form the lining on which repose the four, five, or even six light-blue eggs, most frequently mottled with pale rufous brown, but sometimes spotless. The first hatch takes place about the end of March or beginning of April. This species, the Schwarzdrossel of the Germans, Merlo of the Italians, and Merle of the French and Scotch, is widely and abundantly diffused. It has been recorded by Temminck as far eastward as the Morea, and Mr. Darwin noticed it as far west as Terceira, one of the Azores: but this is no place for a lecture on the geographical distribution of birds. Albinos are not very uncommon. The fruit consumed by the Blackbird and Song Thrush is well repaid, not only by their music, but by the good they do to the garden in destroying slugs and shell-snails. Besides their natural notes, these Merulida may be educated so as to sing an artificial song, and even articulate. Dr. Latham relates that the tame Blackbird may be taught to whistle tunes and to imitate the human voice; and Pliny tells us of the talking Thrush, "imitantem sermones hominum," which was the pet of Claudius Cæsar's Agrippina. The Hon. Daines Barrington quotes another sentence from the same chapter and book of Pliny to show that the young Cæsars had a Thrush, as well as Nightingales, eloquent in Latin and Greek. The talking Thrush belonging to Agrippina we admit; but we suspect that the learned Thrush of the "Cæsares juvenes" was no more than a starling; and, indeed, "sturnum" is the word in the Leyden edition (1548). The Larks, those brilliant vocalists, next claim our notice, and with the Sky-Lark, or Lavrock* we begin. Fear not, reader; there is no description coming of the variety of the intense gushes, the prodigal outpourings of this Ariel of song, as he mounts till the eye can no longer follow him, though the ear still drinks his wild music. We are not in a frame of mind for such attempts; we have just read those beautiful lines that close the most soul-stirring of all biographiest-lines describing, with all the touching fervour of a holy poetry, the affecting incident that made * Alauda arvensis. † Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. by J. G. Lockhart, Esq., his literary executor. its way to the hearts of the mourners when they laid in the earth the daughter of the great and good Sir Walter "The minstrel's darling child." Who, after reading that mournful and thrilling page, will not denounce the sacrilege of depriving the sky-lark of his liberty? Of all the unhallowed instances of bird-incarceration (not even excepting the stupid cruelty of shutting up a Robin in an aviary), the condemnation of the Sky-lark to perpetual imprisonment is surely the most repugnant to every good feeling. The bird, whilst his happy brethren are carolling far up in the sky, as if they would storm heaven itself with their rush of song, just at the joyous season "When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear," is doomed to pine in some dingy street. There, in a den with a solid wooden roof, painted green outside, and white, glaring white, within-which, in bitter mockery, is called a Sky-lark's cage, he keeps winnowing his wretched wings, and beating his breast against the wires, panting for one-one only-upward flight into the free air. To delude him into the recollection that there are such places as the fields, which he is beginning to forget, they cut what they call a turf-a turf dug up in the vicinity of this smokecanopied Babel of bricks, redolent of all its sooty abominations, and bearing all the marks of the thousands of tons of fuel which are now suffered to escape up our chimneys, and fall down again upon our noses and into our lungs,-tons, which, when our coalmines begin to shrink alarmingly-'tis no laughing matter, the time must come some future Arnott* will, perhaps too late, enable the public to save, while he, at the same time, bestows upon them the blessing of a pure atmosphere. Well, this abominable lump of dirt is presented to the sky-lark as a refreshment for his parched feet, longing for the fresh morning dews. Miserable as the winged creature is, he feels that there is something resembling grass under him; and then the fond wretch looks upward and warbles, and expects his mate. Is it possible to see and hear this desecration of instinct unmoved? and yet we endure it every spring, and moreover, we have our Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals. When free, the Sky-lark never sings on the ground: his notes are first heard early in the year, and his song is continued far into the summer. About the end of April or the beginning of May the nest is placed snugly among the corn or herbage, and rests * We by no means intend to insinuate that the present gifted philosopher is unable to effect this; we believe that he could; but revolutions to be stable should be gradual, or they are apt to end in smoke. upon the earth. It is framed of the stalks of plants, with an inside lining of fine dry grasses, and contains four or five greenish-white eggs, spotted with brown. The first family is generally ready for mounting into the air by the end of June; and a second brood is usually fully fledged in August. It is most persevering in the great business of incubation; and, if the early nests are taken, will lay on till September. Such "philoprogenitiveness" may account for the swarms that cover the face not only of this but other countries in the autumn and winter, when the fatal net entangles hundreds at a time, and thousands fall a sacrifice to the various engines which are at work to bring them to the poulterer's stall. The duty paid on these victims at Leipsic amounted, when Dr. Latham wrote, to twelve thousand crowns per annum, at a grosch, or twopence halfpenny sterling, for every sixty larks. The first impulse is to regret the sacrifice of so sweet a singer; but if these myriads were left unmolested, what would become of the other species-what would become of the Sky-larks themselves? Still they must be seen on the board with regret; pretty accompaniments though they be to claret when dressed à la broche, and certainly consolatory when served à la minute or en caisse. The Wood-lark,* if it cannot compete with the Sky-lark in variety of notes, must be allowed to surpass it in the rich and melodious quality of its tone. It sometimes sings on a tree, but its favourite position for exerting its charming powers is in the air, and it may be known to the eye of those whose ear, unaccustomed to distinguish the song of birds, would not detect the difference, by its flight in widely-extended circles; whereas the Sky-lark keeps rising almost perpendicularly in a spiral direction, till it is lost in the clear blue above. The Wood-lark, which is a comparatively scarce bird with us, appears to be much more enduring on the wing than the Sky-lark, and will sometimes continue in the air, soaring to a great height, singing, still singing, for an hour together. It begins to breed early in the season. Colonel Montagu found the nest, which is not unlike that of the Sky-lark, with eggs in it, on the fourth of April. A few fine hairs are sometimes added to the lining, but the situation chosen for it, though on the ground, is more frequently in wild and barren lands, shielded by rank grass, a tuft of furze, or a stunted bush, than in cultivated districts. The eggs, about four in number, are brown, mottled with gray and ash-colour. Unlike the preceding species, the Wood-lark does not assemble in flocks in the winter, but would seem rather to keep together in families of from five to seven. It is a very clear songster, and, in favourable weather, will begin its melody soon after Christmas. * Alauda arborea. The Pipits, or Tit-larks, though in many points resembling the true larks, differ so much in others that they have been generically separated. The Meadow Pipit is the most common; its nest is placed on the ground, and the song, which is sweet but short, is not commenced till the bird has attained a considerable elevation in the air, whence, after hovering a little, it descends warbling till it reaches the ground. In captivity, the Meadow Pipit is highly valued by bird-fanciers for its song. There is not much music among the Tit-mice, though the Long-tailed Tit, in the spring, warbles a pleasing but low melody near its bottle-shaped nest; and, as the Buntings hardly deserve the name of song-birds, we pass from them to the other "finches of the grove." The song of the Bullfinch-we do not mean the low whistle which is its call-note-is of a modest softness and sweetness, but murmured in such an under tone as to require a close proximity to the bush whence it proceeds to make the ear aware of it. Its docility in learning to whistle tunes in captivity is well known; and those who have once possessed a musical pet of this description will know how to "share Maria's grief" for the loss of her favourite. Numbers of these performers are imported annually from Germany, where there are regular schools for teaching them. The thick underwood, or a low close-leaved tree, is most frequently selected for the nest, which is made of small sticks, and lined with a few root fibres: the four or five bluish-white eggs are spotted with pale orangebrown. The Greenfinch or Green Linnet,** though not gifted with many natural notes, is prized in confinement for its facility in acquiring those of other birds. It soon becomes familiar with its mistress, and has been known to make free with the soft delicate downy hair on the back of her snowy neck, probably prompted to this rape of the lock by the instinct which urged the poor bird to prepare materials for a nest which was never to be built. In a state of nature, the thick hedge, close bush, or impervious ivy, hides the nest of moss and wool, lined with fine hair and feathers, which is seldom complete before the end of May or beginning of June, and the four or five bluish-white eggs are speckled with light orange-brown. The common Brown Linnet'stt "lay of love," though not long, * Anthus aquaticus-Rock or Shore Pipit. Anthus pratensis-Meadow Pipit. † Parus-Tomtits. § Emberiza. Parus caudatus. Pyrrhula vulgaris. There are some of these academies in Hesse and Fulda, and at Waltershausen. ** Loxia Chloris, Linn.-Fringilla Chloris, Teṁm. tt Fringilla cannabina. |