During a fine April morning every wood and spinny in the part of Surrey where I reside rings with the melodious notes of the Throstle, and two or three seasons ago we had a specimen that habitually sang from the top of a cabbage in a field almost surrounded by tall trees. I have heard it sing on the ground between bouts of fighting, on the wing, and from a housetop, where a Starling might have been expected to hold forth. It has been timed, and in one instance at least has been found to sing sixteen hours in a single day, and under favourable circumstances some of its notes may be heard half a mile away. If not the most imitative of all British birds, it comes very close to the holding of that distinction, and can not only mimic some notes as well as their owners can deliver them, but actually improve upon their volume and sweetness. The Ringed Plover and the French Partridge are two examples. I have heard the Throstle reproduce the notes of the following species: Common Curlew, Whimbrel, Dunlin, Peewit, Golden Plover, Common Tern, Redshank, Ringed Plover, French Partridge, and Common Sparrow, besides those of several others. Thrushes vary not only individually as musicians, but in different parts of the country, I am persuaded. Some of the finest singers I have heard have been in Surrey, Cheshire, and Aberdeenshire. The poets have given this species a good deal of deserved attention on account of the excellence of its song, and everyone who has had any experience whatever of the country and its wild life in springtime will at once recognise the truth and beauty of the following lines: “Through the hazels thick espy The hatching throstle’s shining eye.” The call and alarm notes of the Song Thrush are very difficult to convey by the characters of the alphabet. The former sounds something like _sik, sik sik, sik, siki, tsak, tsak_, and the latter _quep_ and _wich-it-tit_. The song has been rendered by the words, “Go-it, go-it, stick-to-it, stick-to-it, you’ll-do-it, you’ll-do-it,” but by far the best representation is that of the great Scottish naturalist, Macgillivray, which I have quoted at length in “Our Bird Friends.” [Illustration: YOUNG SONG THRUSHES WAITING FOR MOTHER.]