“Each woodland pipe is mute
Save when the Redbreast mourns the falling leafs;
Now plaintively, in interrupted trills,
He sings the dirge of the departing year.”
There can be no doubt that the conditions under which the bird sings help to rivet our attention upon its performance, just in the same way that the Nightingale gains some of its popularity by singing at night time when other woodland vocalists are silent, and the Skylark by soaring away up in the blue vault of heaven whilst pouring out its far-sounding music.
ROBIN’S NEST.
Cock Robin has received a great deal of poetic attention, and it is amusing to note how differently the bards have expressed themselves in regard to this familiar bird “that swells its little breast so full of song.” Some of them say it warbles, others it whistles, tootles, carols, chirps, sings, sobs, mourns, and so on.
Any boy or girl who has wandered through the woods in winter will at once recognise the truth and beauty of the following lines from Cowper’s “Winter’s Walk at Noon”:
“No noise is here, or none that hinders thought;