reeds and very long grass coiled horizontally round with a little wool, including the four upright reeds in the substance. How deep it is! but why ?-That the four or five greenish white eggs, with their ash-green and light-brown freckles may not be rolled out by the blasts before which the waving reeds bend. Colonel Montagu saw one of these birds retaining her seat on the nest when every gust forced it almost to the surface of the

water.

The song is varied and pleasing, though hurried like that of the sedge-warbler, and is of better quality. Frequently have we heard it when plying the rod on the banks of the Colne. It sings by night as well as by day continually, and its loud music, often heard clearest in the evening twilight or grey dawn, resembles the notes and voices of several different birds.

Most of the true warblers sing concealed, and so, generally, does the garden-warbler (Curruca hortensis-Sylvia hortensis, of authors); though it sometimes quits its bower of thick foliage to pour forth its wild, but richly deep and mellow flute-like notes from the top branches of a tree. Its attire is modest, consisting of various shades of brown, the under plumage being of a whitish brown. It is a pea and fruit-eater, and in the cherry, and currant, and elderberry season, its bill is always stained.

Towards the end of April or beginning of May, this exquisitely modulating warbler arrives, and retires southward in the autumn. The nest formed of grass-bents, and root-fibres, and a little wool and moss, is generally fixed in a low bush, or in rank herbage, and has been found in the ivy of a wall: the four or five greenishwhite eggs are speckled, and streaked with ash-green and light brown.

This, little as it seems to be attended to in this country, is the true becafico, so earnestly sought on the continent for the tables of the dainty; but it must be remembered that the terms becafico and bec-figue are applied to any of the birds of this race that are fruit-eaters, when they are fat with their, summer feed. Listen to the Professor who gave to the world the Physiologie du Goût.

"Parmi les petits oiseaux, le premier, par ordre d'excellence, est sans contredit le bec-figue. Il s'engraisse au moins autant que le rouge-gorge ou l'ortolan, et la nature lui a donné en outre une amertume légère, et un parfum unique si exquis qu'ils engagent, remplissent et béatifient toutes les puissances dégustatrices. Si un bec-figue était de la grosseur d'un faisan, on le paierait certainement à l'égal d'un arpent de terre.

"C'est grand dommage que cet oiseau privilégié se voit si

rarement à Paris : il en arrive à la vérité quelques-uns, mais il leur manque la graisse qui fait tout leur mérite; et on peut dire qu'ils ressemblent à peine à ceux qu'on voit dans les départements de l'est ou du midi de la France."

This last is quite touching; and, after these tears, such as epicures only shed, we are driven to confess that Paris, like all created places and things, is not perfect.

The same cause probably, prevents the celebrity of the bird with us; for it evidently owes its plumpness and delicious sapidity to the figs, grapes, and other rich fruits of the south of Europe, and thither should the devotee make his pilgrimage.

With what emotion does the philosophical gastronomer above quoted relate the progress of such a pilgrim!

"J'ai entendu parler à Belley, dans ma jeunesse, du jésuite Fabi, né dans ce diocèse, et du goût particulier qu'il avait pour les bec-figues."

"Dès qu'on en entendait crier, on disait: 'Voilà les bec-figues, le père Fabi est en route.' Effectivement, il ne manquait jamais d'arriver le ler. Septembre avec un ami; ils venaient s'en régaler pendant tout le passage; chacun se faisait un plaisir de les inviter; et ils partaient vers le 25.

"Tant qu'il fut en France, il ne manqua jamais de faire son voyage ornithophilique, et ne l'interrompit que quand il fut envoyé à Rome, où il mourut pénitencier en 1688."

The common whitethroat (Curruca cinerea), whose grey coat is so well known to everybody, arrives in our thickets, hedge-rows, and grassy lanes, towards the end of April. He is a bold songster, and sings in right earnest. The heat of the day, when most other birds are hushed, does not silence him. On he trills, his little throat swelling again, only pausing to refresh himself with a few aphides from the rose-tree or honeysuckle, and a fly when he can get one. Mr. Sweet kept it in confinement, and says that nothing can be more amusing; it is full of antics, flying and frisking about, and erecting its crest, generally singing all the time. kept one for eleven years, which, when he wrote, was in as good health and as full song as ever; and he declares that no song need be louder, sweeter, or more varied. He describes the little bird as being of the same temper as the nightingale, never suffering itself to be outdone. It would sing against a nightingale which Mr. Sweet had: when the nightingale raised its voice the white

He

*The "Professeur" adds, "Le père Fabi (Honoré) était un homme d'un grand savoir; il a fait divers ouvrages de théologie et de physique, dans l'un desquels il cherche à prouver, qu'il avait découvert la circulation du sang avant, ou du moins aussitôt, qu'Harvey."

throat did the same, and tried its utmost to get above its great rival. Sometimes in the midst of its song it would run up to the nightingale, stretch out its neck, as if in defiance, and whistle as loud as it could, staring the nightingale in the face. If the nightingale attempted to peck it, away it started in an instant, flying round the aviary and singing all the time.

Mr. Slaney, who was well aware of the whitethroat's habit of singing in a sultry summer noon, gives the following instances of the effect of association.

men.

It is singular how some well-known sounds-even the song of this little bird-associated with remembrances of other scenes and times, will awaken long trains of thought in the minds of We remember a few years since, under circumstances of some depression, alone in a sultry day (when walking between the Hague and the village of Scheveling, on the bleak shores of Holland) hearing unexpectedly the song of this warbler of home, and the note brought back in a moment, clear as a mirror, to the mind's eye, cherished scenes across the water, and the forms and voices of those who gave them value. And once at Rome, amid the magnificent but melancholy ruins of the Colosseum, at noon, when no cloud shadowed the deep blue sky, when all other voices were silent, from the shrubs of that vast amphitheatre this English warbler suddenly poured forth his song, awakening a thousand recollections of the land of the free."*

There is a lesser whitethroat (Curruca garrula) often called the Babillard, that must not be passed without notice. He has some clacking notes in his song which have given him the name of the little miller among the Germans. Bechstein remarks that as these notes are heard more distinctly than the others, they are erroneously thought to be his whole song; but he adds that the rest, though certainly very weak, is so soft, so varied, so melodious, that it surpasses other warblers, and that to enjoy the beauty of its song you should have it alone in a room, and then no other singing bird is more agreeable. Both Mr. Sweet and Mr. Blyth speak highly of it. One that the former bred from the nest became so attached to the cage, that it could not be prevailed on to quit it for any length of time. When the cage-door was set open, it would generally come out quickly, and first alight on the floor, and then mount to the top of its cage, and thence fly to other cages in the room, and catch any flies within its reach. It would y up and take those insects out of the hand, or drink milk out of

* "An Outline of the Smaller British Birds." By Robert A. Slaney, Esq., M.P.

a spoon with much relish, when invited. The least fright sent it to its own cage, first to the top, thence to the door, and then in. Mr. Sweet often hung it out at the window perched on the top of its cage, with the door open, but it would never attempt to go away. If a fly, indeed, passed near it, it would start off and catch it, and return with it to the top of the cage; and, after remaining there a considerable time, it would either return into the cage, or fly in at the window, and perch on the cages of other birds.

This familiar warbler arrives in all April and departs early in Autumn. The nest, framed externally of coarse bents, and lined with finer ones, root-fibres, and horsehair, is generally to be found in low bushes, or among brambles, and contains four or five white eggs, rather smaller than those of the common whitethroat, spotted and speckled, but not closely, with greyish ash or light brown.

The blackcap (Curruca atricapilla) is by common consent acknowledged to excel all the other warblers in the power, beauty, and execution of its notes, excepting the queen of song; and in quality of tone it certainly is, in our opinion, inferior to the nightingale. But the male is a most sweet singer; nor is the song of the female without attraction; and it is but fair to state that a very good judge* says that the blackcap rivals the nightingale, and that many persons even give it the preference.

"If," remarks Bechstein, "it has less volume, strength, and expression, it is more pure, easy, and flute-like in its tones, and

its

song is more varied, smooth, and delicate. It sings also for a much longer period, both when wild and in confinement, its song being hardly suspended throughout the year by day, and prolonged, like that of the nightingale, far into the night, though begun at

dawn."

White gives it a high character for its full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe. He adds that when it sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, it expresses a great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale excepted; and he characterises its music as having such a wild sweetness that it always brought to his mind the song of Amiens, in "As You Like it.' With all this it is, in confinement, most affectionate to its mistress or master.

A hedge or white-thorn bush generally conceals the nest, which is framed of bents and dried herbage, lined with hair and root fibres it is most frequently placed near the ground—that is, not more than two or three feet above it; but we have seen one in the garden attached to a house where we have spent many pleasant

* Bechstein.

days, suspended in a festoon of ivy which had shot out from the wall, and clung to a neighbouring young tree some seven feet from the ground.* The pale greenish-white eggs are speckled or mottled with ash and light-brown, and mostly have a few darkbrown spots and streaks.

The arrival of the blackcap takes place in general about April, and it returns southward in September. A later stay might prevent it from falling a victim to the spit; for it is one of those unfortunate birds that is doomed under the names of Becafico and Macchetta, "ogni qualvolta sieno grassi, ed in istato da far buona figura sulla mensa,' as the Prince of Canino remarks.t

The very name of the bird calls up the remembrance of such a host of eulogists, that an expressive silence would perhaps be the best tribute to the powers of the nightingale; and tame indeed is that Saxon appellation to its Greek name, which would seem to imply that it is the very soul of song. It has been the theme for poetry in all ages, from the earliest lyre to the exquisitely tuned harp that has immortalized the

"Bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream."

Milton, all ear, has introduced it in his finest scenes, and it sings the nuptial song of our first parents in one of his most beautiful passages. Nor has the eloquence of prose been less warm in its praise. Only turn to the elegant fervour with which Pliny dwells on its miraculous power and execution; or to the honest, pious, English admiration of Izaak Walton,|| not to advert to a crowd of others, and what more can be said? We shall, in all humility, confine ourselves to a simple narrative, condensing as much of the history of the bird as our space will admit.

The nightingale (Luscinia Philomela-Motacilla Luscinia, Linn.) arrives in England somewhere about the middle of April. The males, as in the case of the blackcap, come several days before the females; they are very easily caught, and the lynx-eyed, quickeared bird-catchers are immediately on the watch, so that they may secure them before the arrival of their mates; for it is a sad truth that if a male nightingale be taken after his song has won for him a partner, he hardly ever survives in a cage; he dies broken-hearted.

Plentiful as this warbler is in some localities, it is never found in others. Nightingales are numerous in the neighbourhood of London, and a Surrey bird is considered by connoisseurs to possess

* In Theodore Hook's garden at Fulham, Eheu! +"Specchio Comparativo."

"Complete Angler," chap. 1.

‡ Nat. Hist., x. 29.