It Is At The
Same Time Warning And Execration, The Startled Solitary's
Outburst Of Uncontrolled Rage At The Abhorred Sight Of A
Fellow-Being In His Woodland Haunt.
Small birds were numerous at that spot, as if for them also
its wildness and infertility had an attraction.
Tits,
warblers, pipits, finches, all were busy ranging from place to
place, emitting their various notes now from the tree-tops,
then from near the ground; now close at hand, then far off;
each change in the height, distance, and position of the
singer giving the sound a different character, so that the
effect produced was one of infinite variety. Only the
yellow-hammer remained constant in one spot, in one position,
and the song at each repetition was the same. Nevertheless
this bird is not so monotonous a singer as he is reputed. A
lover of open places, of commons and waste lands, with a bush
or dwarf tree for tower to sit upon, he is yet one of the most
common species in the thickly timbered country of the Otter,
Clyst, and Sid, in which I had been rambling, hearing him
every day and all day long. Throughout that district, where
the fields are small, and the trees big and near together, he
has the cirl-bunting's habit of perching to sing on the tops
of high hedgerow elms and oaks.
By and by I had a better bird to listen to - a redstart. A
female flew down within fifteen yards of me; her mate followed
and perched on a dry twig, where he remained a long time for
so shy and restless a creature. He was in perfect plumage,
and sitting there, motionless in the strong sunlight, was
wonderfully conspicuous, the gayest, most exotic-looking bird
of his family in England. Quitting his perch, he flew up into
a tree close by and began singing; and for half an hour
thereafter I continued intently listening to his brief strain,
repeated at short intervals - a song which I think has never
been perfectly described. "Practice makes perfect" is an
axiom that does not apply to the art of song in the bird
world; since the redstart, a member of a highly melodious
family, with a good voice to start with, has never attained to
excellence in spite of much practising. The song is
interesting both on account of its exceptional inferiority and
of its character. A distinguished ornithologist has said that
little birds have two ways of making themselves attractive - by
melody and by bright plumage; and that most species excel in
one or the other way; and that the acquisition of gay colours
by a species of a sober-coloured melodious family will cause
it to degenerate as a songster. He is speaking of the
redstart. Unfortunately for the rule there are too many
exceptions. Thus confining ourselves to a single family - that
of the finches - in our own islands, the most modest coloured
have the least melody, while those that have the gayest
plumage are the best singers - the goldfinch, chaffinch,
siskin, and linnet.
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