self-reliantly as its companion hawthorns, hollies, and hazels. The fuchsia is probably avoided for the same reason as the lilac. It also exudes in spring and early summer a viscid secretion almost as "sticky" and disagreeable, if you run your hand along a twig, as that of the lilac itself; and, as we have already said, anything of this kind is an utter abomination to the Insessores or perchers, who are as particular about their feet and toes as ever was dainty and delicate belle about the state of her hands and fingers. Such of our readers as care about these things, and have the opportunity, may very profitably and pleasantly give an occasional half-hour to the doings of our song-birds at this season. Their little love quarrels and rivalries are very amusing. All this forenoon a pair of cock chaffinches have been bickering and quarrelling after their fashion along the hedgerows and amongst the trees immediately opposite our study window. The casus belli is of course a female, handsome and coy, and fully conscious, you may believe, of her own value, who keeps flitting about at a little distance, proud and pleased, doubtless, to be the object of rivalry between a pair of such gay and lively chaffinch beaux. Varium et mutabile, she has evidently great difficulty in making up her mind as to which of the suitors she shall select; her state of indecision being probably akin to that of the renowned Captain Macheath in the Beggar's Opera :— "How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away! The rival birds are in their gayest spring plumage; and when tired of mere vulgar scolding and abuse, they try to sing each other down; and then it is that they are well worth not merely the listening to, but the looking at. Directly opposite the gean-tree near the top of which the lady chaffinch sits preening her feathers, RIVAL CHAFFINCHES-GRAY'S ODE TO SPRING. 407 and occasionally uttering a twink-twink of self-admiration, is an aged hawthorn, on which the rivals select to hold their tournament of song; and the energy and heart with which a bird sings in such. a case must be seen and quietly studied to be fully appreciated. Swaying lightly each on his own bough, the rivals begin to sing as if their very lives depended upon it; their throats swollen almost to bursting; the feathers on their polls erected into a crest, and their whole bodies tremulous to the very tips of the quill feathers of their wings, as they pour forth a torrent of song so rapid, clear, and loud, that all the other birds in the neighbourhood are for the moment silent, as if they had purposely ceased their own aimless melodies to listen to the impassioned strains of the competitors in the thorn. Of human eloquence, Quintilian says, "Pectus, id est quod disertum facit "-the heart (and not the brain) is that which makes a man eloquent; and even more than of eloquence, with all the might of its "winged words," is the same thing true of song. To be all it ought to be, and be at its best, it must well up a living stream from the hot, impassioned heart; not from the marble fountain of mere intellect, which, if always clear, is not the less always cold. If ever song came, in Quintilian's phrase, direct a pectore-from the heart, it is the song at this moment of the rival competitors in yonder thorn. It is only when one has seen and studied a bird singing after this fashion that the full force and meaning of a line in Gray's Ode to Spring can be understood and appreciated. Under the lens of a cold, critical analysis, the line is sheer nonsense; in sight of the bird itself, as at this moment, singing with all his might, heart and soul in every note, its truth and beauty are at once apparent. The line is this "The Attic warbler pours her throat, Had not the poet seen, and closely and intelligently observed, a bird in the act of loud and excited song, he would never have ventured on an assertion that at first sight seems so curiously It is to be extravagant, that a warbler " 'pours her throat." observed, however, that the really beautiful and expressive phrase is not original, but second-hand as regards Gray. He borrows it from Pope, in whose Essay on Man (Ep. iii.), published ten or a dozen years before Grays ode, occurs this line "Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?" But it is a pity to separate the line from its context, and as the passage is not too well known, we may be pardoned for quoting it : "Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, It will be seen that Gray makes his nightingale-his "Attic warbler "-feminine, "pours her throat," while Pope, more correctly, makes his linnet songster a mate, "pours his throat;" and Pope who, indeed, from his habits of life, must have known more about birds than Gray, is right, for it is the males of song-birds that sing, and not the females. Milton makes the same mistake as Gray, and adds to the blunder by saying that the nightingale sings "the summer long," which it does not. It is curious that our English poets should so frequently err, as Gray did, in attributing the IT IS THE MALE BIRD THAT SINGS. 409 melodies of song-birds to the females instead of to the males. The explanation, we suppose, is that, as amongst ourselves women as a rule are more musically inclined, and usually have sweeter voices than men, even so the poets, knowing no better, rashly conclude that the rule must hold good amongst song-birds also. The very contrary, however, is the fact. It is the male bird that always sings; the female attempts at song being extremely rare, and when attempted always a failure, never for a moment to be compared with the rich and long-sustained melodies of the male. Of all our song-birds, the most frequently mentioned by the poets is, of course, the nightingale, and almost invariably they make it a "she" instead of a "he." One of the finest passages in English poetry is a reference to the nightingale in The Lover's Melancholy of the dramatist John Ford (d. 1639). We are fond of reciting this passage when "i' the vein" for such things, but we always take the liberty of changing the "she," "hers," and "her" of Ford, into the "he," "his," and "him" of ornithological fact. CHAPTER LXIII. March Dust-Moons of Mars-Planetoids-Occultation of Alpha Leonis-Zodiacal LightSnow Bunting-Old Gaelic Ballad of "Deirdri:" Its Topography. IF for the first few days March [1878] seemed inclined to emulate the peaceful calm and sunshine of its predecessor, it very suddenly assumed a more warlike aspect; a change came over the spirit of its dream; it became boisterous and rude; snow, and sleet, and rain, and storm battling in wild comminglement. It still continued what is called "open" weather, however; there was no frost, no razor-edged and biting winds, and vegetation was rather temporarily checked than seriously hurt or hindered. After this wild burst, in vindication, it is to be presumed, of the month's right to be called after the bellicose Mars, things slowly but steadily improved, and the weather is now such as permits us to get on with our spring work uninterruptedly and pleasantly enough. We have not yet, however, had a sufficiency of the "March dust," so proverbially invaluable at seed-time; and nowhere perhaps so invaluable, so absolutely essential indeed, in its proper season, as in the West Highlands. The day, however, is now lengthening apace, and with a bright warm sun overhead, and brisk north-easterly breezes, we shall doubtless soon have dust enough and to spare. Our reference to Mars the war-god, reminds us that Mars the planet, with whose fiery effulgence every one is familiar, has recently had an accession of dignity such as the old-world stargazers never dreamt of in connection with the ruddy orb. It is found to have at least two attendant moons, small, and so exceedingly difficult of detection even by the aid of the best instruments, |