THE COMMON BUNTING.
A bird which is often taken with larks, and which, indeed, is not unlike one in appearance, is the Common Bunting (Emberiza miliaria). In some parts of the country it is known as the Bunting-Lark, and, from its size and general colouring, a casual observer might easily mistake it for one of the last-named species. No wonder, then, that the old lord Lafeu says:—
“I took this lark for a bunting.”
All’s Well that Ends Well, Act ii. Sc. 5.
THE THROSTLE.
It is somewhat singular that the Thrush (Turdus musicus), a bird as much famed for song as either the nightingale or the lark, has been so little noticed by Shakespeare. We have failed to discover more than three passages in the entire works of our great poet in which this well-known bird is mentioned. It is referred to once in A Winter’s Tale (Act iv. Sc. 2); once in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iii. Sc. 1, where Bottom the weaver, in a doggrel rhyme, sings of—
“The throstle, with his note so true;”
and once again in The Merchant of Venice (Act i. Sc. 2), where Portia, speaking of the French Lord Le Bon, and alluding to his national propensity for a dance on every available opportunity, remarks that—
“If a throstle sing, he falls straight a-capering.”
Many naturalists, who have paid particular attention to the song of the thrush, have insisted upon its taking equal rank as a songster with the more favoured nightingale. Certain it is, that the notes of this bird, although not so varied, nor so liquid, so to say, as those of Philomel, are yet of a clear, rich tone, and have something indescribably sweet about them. “Listen,” says Macgillivray, “to the clear, loud notes of that speckled warbler, that in the softened sunshine pours forth his