Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858», страница 4

"Well, the round of rides, excursions, soirées, visits to the operas and theatres, walks on the Boulevards, and in the galleries of the Louvre, ended at last. The evening before we were to set out for the South of France, I was at my lodgings, unpacking and repacking the luggage which I had left in Joseph's care during my absence among the Alps; I was melancholy, dissatisfied with the dissipations which had exhausted my time and energies, and thinking of Margaret. I had not preserved a single memento of her; and now I wished I had one,–if only a withered leaf, or a line of her writing. In this mood, I chanced to cast my eye upon a stray glove, in the bottom of my trunk. I snatched at it eagerly, and, in the impulse of the moment,–before I reflected that I was wronging Flora,–pressed it to my lips. Yes, I found the place where it had been mended, the spot Margaret's fingers had touched, and gave it a kiss for every stitch. Then, incensed at myself, I flung it from me, and hurried from the room. I walked towards the Place de la Concorde, where the brilliant lamps burned like a constellation. I strolled through the Elysian Fields, and watched the lights of the carriages swarming like fire-flies up the long avenue; stopped by the concert gardens, and listened to the glorified girls singing under rosy and golden pavilions the last songs of the season; wandered about the fountains,–by the gardens of the Tuileries, where the trees stood so shadowy and still, and the statues gleamed so pale,–along the quays of the Seine, where the waves rolled so dark below,–trying to settle my thoughts, to master myself, to put Margaret from me.

"Weary at length, I returned to my chamber, seated myself composedly, and looked down at the glove which lay where I had thrown it, upon the polished floor. Mechanically I stooped and took up a bit of folded paper. It was written upon,–I unrolled it, and read. It was as if I had opened the record of doom! Had the apparition of Margaret herself risen suddenly before me, I could not have been more astounded. It was a note from her,–and such a note!–full of love, suffering, and humility,–poured out of a heart so deep and tender and true, that the shallowness of my own seemed utterly contemptible, in comparison with it. I cannot tell you what was written, but it was more than even my most cruel and exacting pride could have asked. It was what would once have made me wild with joy,–now it almost maddened me with despair. I, who had often talked fine philosophy to others, had not a grain of that article left to physic my own malady. But one course seemed plain before me, and that was, to go quietly and drown myself in the Seine, which I had seen flowing so swift and dark under the bridges, an hour ago, when I stood and mused upon the tragical corpses its solemn flood had swallowed.

"I am a little given to superstition, and the mystery of the note excited me. I have no doubt but there was some subtile connection between it and the near presence of Margaret's spirit, of which I had that night been conscious. But the note had reached me by no supernatural method, as I was at first half inclined to believe. It was, probably, the touch, the atmosphere, the ineffably fine influence which surrounded it, which had penetrated my unconscious perceptions, and brought her near. The paper, the glove, were full of Margaret,–full of something besides what we vaguely call mental associations,–full of emanations of the very love and suffering which she had breathed into the writing.

"How the note came there upon the floor was a riddle which I was too much bewildered to explain by any natural means. Joseph, who burst in upon me, in my extremity of pain and difficulty, solved it at once. It had fallen out of the glove, where it had lain folded, silent, unnoticed, during all this intervening period of folly and vexation of soul. Margaret had done her duty, in time; I had only myself to blame for the tangle in which I now found myself. I was thinking of Flora, upon the deck of the steamship, when, in a moment of chagrin, she had been so near throwing herself over; wondering to what fate her passion and impetuosity would hurry her now, if she knew; cursing myself for my weakness and perfidy; while Joseph kept asking me what I intended to do.

"'Do? do?' I said, furiously,–'I shall kill you, that is what I shall do, if you drive me mad with questions which neither angels nor fiends can answer!'

"'I know what you will do,' said Joseph; 'you will go home and marry Margaret.'

"You can have no conception of the effect of these words,–Go home and marry Margaret. I shook as I have seen men shake with the ague. All that might have been,–what might be still,–the happiness cast away, and perhaps yet within my reach,–the temptation of the Devil, who appealed to my cowardice, to fly from Flora, break my vows, risk my honor and her life, for Margaret,–all this rushed through me tumultuously. At length I said,–

"'No, Joseph; I shall do no such thing. I can never be worthy of Margaret; it will be only by fasting and prayer that I can make myself worthy of Flora.'

"'Will you start for Italy in the morning?' he asked, pitilessly.

"'For Italy in the morning?' I groaned. Meet Flora, travel with her, play the hypocrite, with smiles on my lips and hell in my heart,–or thunderstrike her at once with the truth;–what was I to do? To some men the question would, perhaps, have presented few difficulties. But for me, Sir, who am not quite devoid of conscience, whatever you may think,–let me tell you, I'd rather hang by sharp hooks over a roasting fire than be again suspended as I was betwixt two such alternatives, and feel the torture of both!

"Having driven Joseph away, I locked myself into my room, and suffered the torments of the damned in as quiet a manner as possible, until morning. Then Joseph returned, and looked at me with dismay.

"'For Heaven's sake!' he said, 'you ought not to let this thing kill you,–and it will, if you keep on.'

"'So much the better,' I said, 'if it kills nobody but me. But don't be alarmed. Keep perfectly cool, and attend to the commission I am going to trust to you. I can't see Flora this morning; I must gain a little time. Go to the station of the Lyons railway, where I have engaged to meet her party; say to her that I am detained, but that I will join her on the journey. Give her no time to question you, and be sure that she does not stay behind.'

"'I'll manage it,–trust me!' said Joseph. And off he started. At the end of two hours, which seemed twenty, he burst into my room, crying,–

"'Good news! she is gone! I told her you had lost your passport, and would have to get another from our minister.'

"'What!' I exclaimed, 'you lied to her?'

"'Oh! there was no other way!' said Joseph, ingenuously,–'she is so sharp! They're to wait for you at Marseilles. But I'll manage that, too. On their arrival at the Hotel d'Orient, they'll find a telegraphic dispatch from me. I wager a hat, they'll leave in the first steamer for Naples. Then you can follow at your leisure.'

"'Thank you, Joseph.'

"I felt relieved. Then came a reaction. The next day I was attacked by fever. I know not how long I struggled against it, but it mastered me. The last things I remember were the visits of friends, the strange talk of a French physician, whispers and consultations, which I knew were about me, yet took no interest in,–and at length Joseph rushing to my bedside, in a flutter of agitation, and gasping,–

"'Flora!'

"'What of Flora?' I demanded.

"'I telegraphed, but she wouldn't go; she has come back; she is here!'

"I was sinking back into the stupor from which I had been roused, when I heard a rustling which seemed afar off, yet was in my chamber; then a vision appeared to my sickened sight,–a face which I dimly thought I had seen before,–a flood of curls and a rain of kisses showering upon me,–sobs and devouring caresses,–Flora's voice calling me passionate names; and I lying so passive, faintly struggling to remember, until my soul sank whirling in darkness, and I knew no more.

"One morning, I cannot tell you how long after, I awoke and found myself in a strange-looking room, filled with strange objects, not the least strange of which was the thing that seemed myself. At first I looked with vague and motionless curiosity out of the Lethe from which my mind slowly emerged; painless, and at peace; listlessly questioning whether I was alive or dead,–whether the limp weight lying in bed there was my body,–the meaning of the silence and the closed curtains. Then, with a succession of painful flashes, as if the pole of an electrical battery had been applied to my brain, memory returned,–Margaret, Flora, Paris, delirium. I next remember hearing myself groan aloud,–then seeing Joseph at my side. I tried to speak, but could not. Upon my pillow was a glove, and he placed it against my cheek. An indescribable, excruciating thrill shot through me; still I could not speak. After that, came a relapse. Like Mrs. Browning's poet, I lay

 
''Twixt gloom and gleam,
With Death and Life at each extreme.'
 

"But one morning I was better. I could talk. Joseph bent over me, weeping for joy.

"'The danger is past!' he said. 'The doctors say you will get well!'

"'Have I been so ill, then?'

"'Ill?' echoed Joseph. 'Nobody thought you could live. We all gave you up, except her;–and she'–

"'She!' I said,–'is she here?'

"'From the moment of her arrival,' replied Joseph, 'she has never left you. Oh, if you don't thank God for her,'–he lowered his voice,–'and live all the rest of your life just to reward her, you are the most ungrateful wretch! You would certainly have died but for her. She has scarcely slept, till this morning, when they said you would recover.'

"Joseph paused. Every word he spoke went down like a weight of lead into my soul. I had, indeed, been conscious of a tender hand soothing my pillow, of a lovely form flitting through my dreams, of a breath and magnetic touch of love infusing warm, sweet life into me,–but it had always seemed Margaret, never Flora.

"'The glove?' I asked.

"'Here it is,' said Joseph. 'In your delirium you demanded it; you would not be without it; you caressed it, and addressed to it the tenderest apostrophes.'

"'And Flora,–she heard?'

"'Flora?' repeated Joseph. 'Don't you know–haven't you any idea–what has happened? It has been terrible!'

"'Tell me at once!' I said. 'Keep nothing back!'

"'Immediately on her return from Marseilles,–you remember that?'

"'Yes, yes! go on!'

"'She established herself here. Nobody could come between her and you; and a brave, true girl she proved herself. Oh, but she was wild about you! She offered the doctors extravagant sums–she would have bribed Heaven itself, if she could–not to let you die. But there came a time,–one night, when you were raving about Margaret,–I tell you, it was terrible! She would have the truth, and so I told her,–everything, from the beginning. It makes me shudder now to think of it,–it struck her so like death!'

"'What did she say?–what did she do?'

"'She didn't say much,–"Oh, my God! my God!"–something like that. The next morning she showed me a letter which she had written to Margaret.'

"'To Margaret?' I started up, but fell back again, helpless, with a groan.

"'Yes,' said Joseph,–'and it was a letter worthy of the noblest woman. I wrote another, for I thought Margaret ought to know everything. It might save her life, and yours, too. In the mean time, I had got worse news from her still,–that her health continued to decline, and that her physician saw no hope for her except in a voyage to Italy. But that she resolutely refused to undertake, until she got those letters. You know the rest.'

"'The rest?' I said, as a horrible suspicion flashed upon me. 'You told me something terrible had happened.'

"'Yes,–to Flora. But you have heard the worst. She is gone; she is by this time in Rome.'

"'Flora gone? But you said she was here.'

"'She? So she is! But did you think I meant Flora? I supposed you knew. Not Flora,–but Margaret! Margaret!'

"I shrieked out, 'Margaret?' That's the last I remember,–at least, the last I can tell. She was there,–I was in her arms;–she had crossed the sea, not to save her own life, but mine. And Flora had gone, and my dreams were true; and the breath and magnetic touch of love, which infused warm, sweet life into me, and seemed not Flora's, but Margaret's, were no illusion, and–what more can I tell?

"From the moment of receiving those letters, Margaret's energies were roused, and she had begun to regain her health. There is no such potent medicine as hope and love. It had saved her, and it saved me. My recovery was sure and speedy. The happiness which had seemed too great, too dear to be ever possible, was now mine. She was with me again, all my own! Only the convalescent, who feels the glow of love quicken the pure pulses of returning health, knows what perfect bliss is.

"As soon as I was strong enough to travel, we set out for Italy, the faithful Joseph accompanying us. We enjoyed Florence, its palaces and galleries of art, the quaint old churches, about which the religious sentiment of ages seems to hang like an atmosphere, the morning and evening clamor of musical bells, the Arno, and the olive-crowned Tuscan hills,–all so delightful to the senses and the soul. After Florence, Naples, with its beautiful, dangerous, volcanic environs, where the ancients aptly located their heaven and hell, and where a luxurious, passionate people absorbs into its blood the spirit of the soil, and the fire and languor of the clime. From Naples to Rome, where we saw St Peter's, that bubble on the surface of the globe, which the next earthquake may burst, the Vatican, with its marvels of statuary, the ruined temples of the old gods and heroes, the Campagna, the Pope, and–Flora. We had but a glimpse of her. It was one night, at the Colosseum. We had been musing about that vast and solemn pile by the moonlight, which silvered it over with indescribable beauty, and at last, accompanied by our guides, bearing torches, we ascended through dark and broken passages to the upper benches of the amphitheatre. As we were passing along one side, we saw picturesquely moving through the shadows of the opposite walls, with the immense arena between, the red-flaring torches and half-illuminated figures of another party of visitors. I don't know whether it was instinct, or acuteness of vision, that suggested Flora; but, with a sudden leap of the heart, I felt that she was there. We descended, and passed out under the dark arches of the stupendous ruin. The other visitors walked a little in advance of us,–two of the number lingering behind their companions; and certain words of tenderness and passion we heard, which strangely brought to my mind those nights on the ocean-steamer.

"'What is the matter with you?' said Margaret, looking in my face.

"'Hush!' I whispered,–'there–that woman–is Flora!'

"She clung to me,–I drew her closer, as we paused; and the happy couple went on, over the ancient Forum, by the silent columns of the ruined temples, and disappeared from sight upon the summit of the Capitoline Hill.

"A few months later, we heard of the marriage of Flora to an English baronet; she is now my Lady, and I must do her the justice to say that I never knew a woman better fitted to bear that title. As for Margaret,–if you will return with me to my home on the Hudson, after we have finished our hunt after those Western lands, you shall see her, together with the loveliest pair of children that ever made two proud parents happy.

"And here," added Westwood, "we have arrived at the end of our day's journey; we have had the Romance of the Glove, and now–let's have some supper."

TO –

ON RECEIVING HIS

"FEW VERSES FOR A FEW FRIENDS."

"(PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED.)"

 
Well thought! Who would not rather hear
The songs to Love and Friendship sung,
Than those which move the stranger's tongue
And feed his unselected ear?
 
 
Our social joys are more than fame;
Life withers in the public look:
Why mount the pillory of a book,
Or barter comfort for a name?
 
 
Who in a house of glass would dwell,
With curious eyes at every pane?
To ring him in and out again
Who wants the public crier's bell?
 
 
To see the angel in one's way,
Who wants to play the ass's part,
Bear on his back the wizard Art,
And in his service speak or bray?
 
 
And who his manly locks would shave
And quench the eyes of common sense,
To share the noisy recompense
That mocked the shorn and blinded slave?
 
 
The heart has needs beyond the head,
And, starving in the plenitude
Of strange gifts, craves its common food,
Our human nature's daily bread.
 
 
We are but men: no gods are we
To sit in mid-heaven, cold and bleak,
Each separate, on his painful peak,
Thin-cloaked in self-complacency!
 
 
Better his lot whose axe is swung
In Wartburg woods, or that poor girl's
Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls
And sings the songs that Luther sung,
 
 
Than his, who, old and cold and vain,
At Weimar sat, a demigod,
And bowed with Jove's imperial nod
His votaries in and out again!
 
 
Ply, Vanity, thy wingèd feet!
Ambition, hew thy rocky stair!
Who envies him who feeds on air
The icy splendors of his seat?
 
 
I see your Alps above me cut
The dark, cold sky,–and dim and lone
I see ye sitting, stone on stone,
With human senses dulled and shut.
 
 
I could not reach you, if I would,
Nor sit among your cloudy shapes;
And (spare the fable of the Grapes
And Fox) I would not, if I could.
 
 
Keep to your lofty pedestals!
The safer plain below I choose:
Who never wins can rarely lose,
Who never climbs as rarely falls.
 
 
Let such as love the eagle's scream
Divide with him his home of ice:
For me shall gentler notes suffice,–
The valley-song of bird and stream,
 
 
The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees,
The flail-beat chiming far away,
The cattle-low at shut of day,
The voice of God in leaf and breeze!
 
 
Then lend thy hand, my wiser friend,
And help me to the vales below,
(In truth, I have not far to go,)
Where sweet with flowers the fields extend.
 

THE SINGING-BIRDS AND THEIR SONGS

Those persons enjoy the most happiness, if possessed of a benevolent heart and favored by ordinary circumstances of fortune, who have acquired by habit and education the power of deriving pleasure from objects that lie immediately around them. But these common sources of happiness are opened to those only who are endowed with genius, or who have received a certain kind of intellectual training. The more ordinary the mental and moral organization and culture of the individual, the more far-fetched and dear-bought must be his enjoyments. Nature has given us in full development only those appetites which are necessary to our physical well-being. She has left our moral appetites and capacities in the germ, to be developed by education and circumstances. Hence those agreeable sensations that come chiefly from the exercise of the imagination, which may be called the pleasures of sentiment, are available only to persons of a peculiar refinement of mind. The ignorant and rude may be dazzled and delighted by physical beauty, and charmed by loud and stirring sounds; but those more simple melodies and less attractive colors and forms that appeal to the mind for their principal effect act more powerfully upon individuals of superior culture.

In proportion as we have been trained to be agreeably affected by the outward forms of Nature, and the sounds that proceed from the animate and inanimate world, are we capable of being made happy without resorting to expensive and vulgar recreations. It ought, therefore, to be one of the chief points in the education of youth, while teaching them the still more important offices of humanity, to cultivate and enliven their susceptibility to the charms of natural objects. Then would the aspects of Nature, continually changing with the progress of the seasons and the sounds that enliven their march, satisfy, in a great measure, that craving for agreeable sensations which leads mankind away from humble and healthful pursuits to those of a more artificial and exciting life. The value of such pleasures consists not so much in their cheapness as in their favorable moral influences, which improve the heart, while they lead the mind to observations that pleasantly exercise and develope, without tasking its powers. The quiet emotions, half musical and half poetical, which are awakened by listening to the songs of birds, belong to this class of refined enjoyments.

But the music of birds, though agreeable to all, conveys positive and durable pleasure only to those who have learned to associate with their notes, in connection with the scenes of Nature, a thousand interesting and romantic images. To many persons of this character it affords more delight than the most brilliant music of the opera or the concert. In vain, therefore, will it be said, as an objection, that the notes of birds have no charm, save that which is derived from association, and that, considered as music, they do not equal that of the most simple reed or flageolet. It is sufficient to remark, that the most delightful influences of Nature proceed from those sights and sounds that appeal to the imagination and affections through the medium of slight and almost insensible impressions made upon the eye and the ear. At the moment when these physical impressions exceed a certain mean, the spell is broken, and the enjoyment becomes sensual, not intellectual. How soon, indeed, would the songs of birds lose their effect, if they were loud and brilliant, like a band of instruments! It is their simplicity that gives them their charm.

As a further illustration of this point, it may be remarked that simple melodies have among all people exercised a greater power over the imagination than louder and more complicated music. Nature employs a very small amount of physical sensation to create an intellectual passion, and when an excess is used a diminished effect is produced. I am persuaded that the effect of a great part of our sacred music is lost by an excess of harmony and a too great volume of sound. On the same principle, a loud crash of thunder deafens and terrifies; but its low and distant rumbling produces an agreeable emotion of sublimity.

The songs of birds are as intimately allied with poetry as with music. The lark has been aptly denominated a "feathered lyric" by one of the English poets; and the analogy becomes apparent when we consider how much the song of a bird resembles a lyrical ballad in its influence on the mind. Though it utters no words, how plainly it suggests a long train of agreeable images of love, beauty, friendship, and home! When a young person has suffered any severe wound of the affections, he seldom fails, if endowed with a sensitive mind, to listen to the birds as sharers in his affliction. Through them the deities of the groves seem to offer him their consolation. By indulging this habit of making companionship with the objects of Nature, all pleasing sights and sounds gradually become certain anodynes for his sorrow; and those who have this mental alembic for turning grief into a poetic melancholy can seldom be reduced to a state of absolute despondency. Poetry, or rather the poetic sentiment, exalts all our pleasures and soothes all our afflictions by some illusive charm, whether it be turned into the channel of religion or romance. Without this reflection of light from the imagination, what is the passion of love? and what is our love of beauty and of sweet sounds, but a mere gravitation?

The voice of every singing-bird has its associations in the minds of all susceptible persons who were born and nurtured within the precincts of its untutored minstrelsy. The music of birds is modulated in pleasant unison with all the chords of affection and imagination, filling the soul with a lively consciousness of happiness and beauty, and soothing it with romantic visions of memory,–of love, when it was an ethereal sentiment of adoration and not a passion, and of friendship, when it was a passion and not an expedience,–of dear and simple adventures, and of comrades who had part in them,–of dappled mornings, and serene and glowing sunsets,–of sequestered nooks and mossy seats in the old wood,–of paths by the riverside, and flowers that smiled a bright welcome to our rambling,–of lingering departures from home, and of old by-ways, overshadowed by trees and hedged with roses and viburnums, that spread their shade and their perfume around our path to gladden our return. By this pleasant instrumentality has Nature provided for the happiness of those who have learned to be delighted with the survey of her works, and with the sound of those voices which she has appointed to communicate to the human soul the joys of her inferior creation.

The singing-birds, with reference to their songs, may be divided into four classes. First, the Rapid Singers, whose song is uninterrupted, of considerable length, and uttered with fervor, and in apparent ecstasy. Second, the Moderate Singers, whose notes are slowly modulated, but without pauses or rests between their different strains. Third, the Interrupted Singers, who seldom modulate their notes with rapidity, and make decided pauses between their several strains, of which there are in general from five to eight or nine. Fourth, the Warblers, whose notes consist of only one or two strains, not combined into a song.

The canary, among foreign birds, and the linnet and bobolink, among American birds, are familiar examples of the first class; the common robin and the veery of the second; the wood-thrush, the cat-bird, and the mocking-bird, of the third; and the blue-bird, the pewee, and the purple martin, of the fourth class. It may be added, that some birds are nearly periodical in their habits of singing, preferring the morning and evening, and occasional periods in other parts of the day, while others sing almost indifferently at all hours. The greater number of species, however, are more tuneful in the early morning than at any other hour.

June, in this part of the world, is the most vocal month of the year. Many of our principal songsters do not arrive until near the middle of May; and all, whether they come early or late, continue in song throughout the month of June. The bobolink, which is one of the first to become silent, continues vocal until the second week in July. So nearly simultaneous is the discontinuance of the songs of this species, that it might seem as if their silence were preconcerted, and that by a vote they had, on a certain day, adjourned over to another year. If an unusually genial day occurs about the seventh of July, we may hear multitudes of them singing merrily on that occasion. Should this time be followed by two or three successive days of chilly and rainy weather, their tunefulness is so generally brought to a close during this period, that we may not hear another musical note from a single individual after the seventh. The songs of birds are discontinued as soon as their amorous dalliances and the care of their offspring have ceased. Hence those birds that raise but one brood of young during the season, like the bobolink, are the first to become silent.

No one of the New England birds is an autumnal warbler; though the song-sparrow often greets the fine mornings in October with his lays, and the shore-lark, after spending the summer in Labrador and about the shores of Hudson's Bay, is sometimes heard in autumn, soaring and singing at the dawn of day, while on his passage to the South. The bobolink, the veery, or Wilson's thrush, the red thrush, and the golden robin, are silent after the middle of July; the wood-thrush, the cat-bird, and the common robin, not until a month later; but the song-sparrow alone continues to sing throughout the summer. The tuneful season of the year, in New England, embraces a period of about four months, from the middle of April to the middle of August.

There are certain times of the day, as well as certain seasons of the year, when the birds are most musical. The grand concert of the feathered tribe takes place during the hour between dawn and sunrise. During the remainder of the day they sing less in concert, though many species are very musical at noonday, and seem, like the nocturnal birds, to prefer the hour when others are silent. At sunset there is an apparent attempt to unite once more in chorus, but this is far from being so loud or so general as in the morning. The little birds which I have classed in the fourth division are a very important accompaniment to the anthem of dawn, their notes, though short, serving agreeably to fill up the pauses made by the other musicians. Thus, the hair-bird (Fringilla Socialis) has a sharp and trilling note, without any modulation, and not at all melodious, when heard alone; but in the morning it is the chief harmonizer of the whole chorus, and serves, more than any other voice, to give unity and symphony to the multitude of miscellaneous parts.

There are not many birds whose notes could be accurately described upon the gamut. The nearest approach we can make to accuracy is to give some general idea of their time and modulation. Their musical intervals can be distinguished but with difficulty, on account of the rapidity of their utterance. I have often attempted to transcribe some of their notes upon the musical scale, but I am persuaded that such sketches can be only approximations to literal correctness. As different individuals of the same species sing very differently, the notes, as transcribed from the song of one individual, will never exactly represent the song of another. If we listen attentively, however, to a number of songs, we shall detect in all of them a theme, as it is termed by musicians, of which the different individuals of the species warble their respective variations. Every song is, technically speaking, a fantasia constructed upon this theme, from which none of the species ever departs.

It is very generally believed that the singing-birds are confined to temperate latitudes, and that the tropical birds have not the gift of song. That this is an error is apparent from the testimony of travellers, who speak of the birds in the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand as singing delightfully, and some fine songsters are occasionally imported in cages from tropical climates. The origin of this notion may be explained in several ways. It is worthy of notice that within the tropics the singing season of different species of birds does not occur at the same time. One species may be musical in the spring, another in summer, and others in autumn and winter. When one species, therefore, has begun to sing, another has ceased, so that, at whatever time of the year the traveller stops, he hears but few birds engaged in song.