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