clinking note of the chiffchaff up to the nightingale. Several of the warblers sing at night, and several of the constituents of the lark sing on the wing. On the lark's side, the birds are remarkable for gladness and ecstacy, and are more creatures of the light and of the open spaces; on the side of the nightingale there is more pure melody, and more a love for the twilight and the privacy of arboreal life. Both the famous songsters are representative as to color, exhibiting the prevailing gray and dark tints. A large number of birds, I noticed, had the two white quills in the tail characteristic of the lark. I found that I had overestimated the bird-music to be heard in England in midsummer. It appeared to be much less than our own. The last two or three weeks of July were very silent: the only bird I was sure of hearing in my walks was the yellow-hammer; while, on returning home early in August, the birds made such music about my house that they woke me up in the morning. The song sparrow and bush sparrow were noticeable till in September, and the red-eyed vireo and warbling vireo were heard daily till in October. On the whole, I may add that I did not anywhere in England hear so fine a burst of bird-song as I have heard at home, and I listened long for it and attentively. Not so fine in quality, though perhaps greater in quantity. It sometimes happens that several species of our best songsters pass the season in the same locality, some favorite spot in the woods, or at the head of a sheltered valley, that possesses attraction for many kinds. I found such a place one summer by a small mountain lake, in the southern Catskills, just over the farm borders, in the edge of the primitive forest. The lake was surrounded by an amphitheatre of wooded steeps, except a short space on one side where there was an old abandoned clearing, grown up to saplings and brush. Birds love to be near water, and I think they like a good auditorium, love an open space like that of a small lake in the woods, where their voices can have room and their songs reverberate. Certain it is they liked this place, and early in the morning especially, say from half past three to half past four, there was such a burst of melody as I had never before heard. The most prominent voices were those of the wood thrush, veery thrush, rose-breasted grosbeak, winter wren, and one of the vireos, and occasionally at evening that of the hermit, though far off in the dusky background,--birds all notable for their pure melody, except that of the vireo, which was cheery, rather than melodious. A singular song that of this particular vireo,--"_Cheery, cheery, cheery drunk! Cheery drunk!_"--all day long in the trees above our tent. The wood thrush was the most abundant, and the purity and eloquence of its strain, or of their mingled strains, heard in the cool dewy morning from across that translucent sheet of water, was indeed memorable. Its liquid