Page:Summerstudiesofb00fowlrich.djvu/179

vi wonderful powers of this bird, you must watch him from his first leaving the ground, on a sunny morning, and follow him up into his "privacy of glorious light," abstracting your mind from every other sound, and gathering in the full force and sweetness of that incessant strain. There are many strident notes in it, but the higher he rises the softer will it fall upon the ear, while every note still remains as clear and resonant as it was at first.

Hardly less delightful, though far less familiar, is the song of the Woodlark. Rarely indeed does it happen to me now to catch the voice of a bird unknown to me; and I am not likely to forget how I was saluted, while strolling in the garden of a Welsh farmhouse in the early morning of the 30th of March this year, by a clear and liquid song repeated at short intervals from a tree hard by. For a moment it reminded me of the Great Tit; but other strains followed, which I might compare to those of the Skylark, the Nightingale, and the Lesser Whitethroat. As I grew accustomed to the song, which was repeated daily while I stayed there, I fully recognised its individuality, and should hesitate to describe it as imitative. It was a song to refresh and invigorate you; and the performance suited well with the freshness of early morning among the hills, and with the murmur of the trout-stream beyond the meadow.

There are yet three singers, each of whom might