identify their own kindred, and there is reason to believe that if one of them had never heard the note of his own parents he would still sing like all his predecessors. In a state of confinement birds will occasionally imitate the notes of other species, and in this respect they differ entirely from quadrupeds.

The song of birds seems to be the means used by the male, not only to woo the female, but to call her to himself when absent. Before he has chosen his mate he sings more loudly than at any subsequent period. The different males of the same species seem at that time to be vying with each other, and the one that has the loudest and most varied song is likely to be the first attended by a mate. When the two birds are employed in building their nest, the male constantly attends his partner and sings less loudly and frequently than before. This comparative silence continues until the female be-gins to sit. During incubation the male again sings with emphasis at his usual hours, perched upon some neighboring tree, as if to assure her of his presence, but more probably to entice her away from the nest. It is a curious fact that male birds seem to be displeased to a certain extent while their mate is sitting, on account of her absence, and are more than usually vociferous, sometimes with the evident intention of coquetting with other females.

After the young brood is hatched the attention of the male bird is occupied with the care of his offspring, though he is far less assiduous in his parental duties than the female. If we watch a pair of Robins when they have a nest full of young birds, we shall see the female bring the greater part of their food. The male bird continues to sing until the young have left their nest; but if there is to be no other brood, he becomes immediately silent. If, early in the season, a

couple whose habit is to rear but one brood are robbed of their nest, they will make a new one, and the male in this case continues in song to a later period than those who were not disturbed.

If the male bird loses his mate during incubation, he seldom takes her place, but becomes once more very tuneful, uttering his call-notes loudly for several days and finally changing them into song. It would seem, therefore, that the song of the bird proceeds in some degree from discontent, from his want of a mate, in the one case, or from her absence when she is sitting, in the other. The buoyancy of spirits produced by the season and the full supply of his physical wants are joined with the pains of absence, which he is determined to relieve by exerting all his power to entice his partner from her nest. I have often thought that the almost uninterrupted song of caged birds proves their singing to arise from a desire to entice a companion into their own little prison. Hence, when an old bird from our fields is caught and caged during the breeding-season, he will continue his tunefulness long after all others of the same species have become silent. The Bobolink in a state of freedom will not sing after the middle of July; but if one be caught and caged, he will continue to warble. more loudly than he did in his native meadows until September.

It is generally believed that singing-birds are chiefly confined to temperate latitudes. That this is an error is apparent from the testimony of travellers, who speak of the birds of Africa and of the Sandwich Islands as singing delightfully; and some fine songsters are occasionally imported from tropical countries. It should be considered that in these hot regions the birds are more scattered and are not so well known as those of temperate latitudes, which are generally inhabited

by civilized man. Savages and barbarians, who are the principal inhabitants of hot countries, are seldom observant of the songs or habits of birds. A musician of the feathered race, no less than a human singer, must have an appreciating audience or his powers could not be made known to the world. But even with the same audience, the tropical birds would probably be less esteemed than those of equal merit in our latitudes, for amid the stridulous and deafening sounds from insects in warm climates the notes of birds are scarcely audible. Probably, however, the comparative number of singingbirds is greater in the temperate zone, where there are more of those species that build low, and live in the shrubbery, which the singing-birds chiefly frequent. In warm climates the birds are obliged to live in trees, and the vegetation of the surface of the ground will not support the Finches and Buntings, which are the chief singers of the North.

APRIL.

DEAR to the poet and to the lover of nature is the month of April, when she first timidly plants her footsteps upon the dank meadow and the mossy hillside, clothing the dark brown sods with tufts of greenery, waking the early birds, and cherishing the tender field-flowers. Her hands are ever busy, hanging purple fringes upon the elm and golden tassels upon the willow bough, and weaving for the maple a vesture of crimson. She brings life to the frozen streams, verdure to the seared meadows, and music to the woods, which have heard nothing for months save. the solemn moaning of their own boughs and the echoes of the woodman's axe from an adjoining fell. We welcome April as the comforter of our weariness after long confinement, as the bearer of pleasures which her bounty only can offer, as a sweet maiden entering the door of our prison with hands full of budding flowers and breath scented with violets.

A gladness and hopefulness attend us on the return of spring which are unfelt at other seasons, and produce a sensation like that of the renewal of youth. We are certainly more hopeful at this time than in the autumn, and we look back upon the lapse of the three winter months with a less painful sense of the loss of so much of our allotted period of life than upon the lapse of the three summer months. Though the flight of any season carries us equally onward in our mortal progress, we cannot avoid the feeling that the lapse of winter is our gain as that of summer was our loss. And surely, of these

two reflections, the one that deceives is better than the one that utters the truth; and though we are several months older than we were in the autumn, we may thank Heaven for the delusion that makes us feel younger.

Spring, the true season of hopefulness and action, is unfavorable to thought. So many delightful objects are constantly inviting us to pleasure, that we are tempted to neglect our serious pursuits, and we feel too much exhilaration for confinement or study. It is not while surrounded by pleasures of any kind that we are most capable of reflecting upon them or describing their influence; for the act of thinking upon them requires a suspension of our enjoyments. Hence, in winter we can most easily discourse upon the charms of spring and summer, when the task becomes a pleasant occupation, by reviving the scenes of past delights blended with a foretaste of joys that are to come. But when the rising flowers, the perfumed breezes, and the music of the animated tenants of the streams, woods, and orchards, are all inviting us to come forth and partake of the pleasures they proffer, it is wearisome to sit down apart from all these delights to the comparatively dull task of describing them.

As childhood is not always happy, and as youth is liable to the sorrows and afflictions of later life, the spring is not always cheerful, and the vernal skies are sometimes blackened with wintry tempests, and the earth bound in ice and frost. Even in April the little flowers that are just peeping out from their winter coverts are often greeted by snow, and spring's "ethereal mildness" is exchanged for harsh winds and cloudy skies. In vain do the crocus, the snowdrop, and the yellow narcissus appear in the gardens, or the blue violet and the saxifrage spangle the southern slopes of the hills,the north-wind is not tempered by their beauty nor beguiled by the songs of the early birds.