AMERICAN SINGING-BIRDS.

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tained an opinion, and may very probably have somewhere expressed it, that the birds of America were not so musical as those of England, and this may still be true of the North, but here at least it is not so, and I could now fully appreciate the truth of the following testimony upon this subject, borne by one of the most competent witnesses, Wilson, whose excellent work on the Ornithology of America is well known. He says

"The opinion which so generally prevails in England, that the music of the groves and woods in America is far inferior to that of Europe, I, who have a thousand times listened to both, cannot admit to be correct. We cannot with fairness draw a comparison between the depth of the forest in America, and the cultivated fields of England, because it is a well-known fact, that singingbirds seldom frequent the former in any country. But if the latter places be compared with the like situations in the United States, the superiority of song, I am fully persuaded, would justly belong to the American continent. The few of our song-birds that have visited Europe, extort admiration from the best judges. The notes of the cardinal-grosbeak, says Latham, are almost equal to those of the nightingale. Yet these notes, clear and excellent as they are, are far inferior to those of the wood-thrush, and even to those of the brown thrush or thrasher. Our inimitable mocking bird is also acknowledged by themselves, to be fully equal to the song of the nightingale in its whole compass. Yet these are not one-tenth of the number of our singing-birds. Could these people be transported to the borders of our woods and settlements in the month of May, about half an hour before sunrise, such a ravishing concert would greet their ear, as they have no conception of."

This was certainly the case with us, and we continued to enjoy this concert till more than an hour after sunrise, when it gradually began to die away.

Among the trees in fullest foliage, and most remark