Bird and Insects' Post Office Page 3
He adds the following lines on the occasion:--
"_TO THE NIGHTINGALE, WHICH THE AUTHOR HEARD SING ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1792._
"Whence is it that amazed I hear From yonder wither'd spray, This foremost morn of all the year, The melody of May?
"And why, since thousands would be proud Of such a favour shown, Am I selected from the crowd, To witness it alone?
"Sing'st thou, sweet Philomel, to me, For that I also long Have practised in the groves like thee, Though not like thee in song?
"Or, sing'st thou rather under force Of some divine command, Commissioned to presage a course Of happier days at hand?
"Thrice welcome then! for many a long And joyless year have I, As thou to-day, put forth my song Beneath a wintry sky.
"But thee no wintry skies can harm, Who only need'st to sing To make e'en January charm, And every season spring.
R.B."
[3] I once witnessed this silly and barbarous sport, and saw at least ascore of maimed and wounded birds upon the barns, and stables, andouthouses of the village. I was utterly disgusted, and it required astrong effort of the mind to avoid wishing that one of the gunners atleast had hobbled off the ground with a dangling leg, which might forone half-year have reminded him of the cowardly practice of "shootingfrom the trap."--R. B.
[4] The poor pigeon, I think, must here allude to the old well-knownquarrel between the two families about building their nests. The magpieonce undertook to teach the pigeon how to build a more substantial andcommodious dwelling, and certainly it would have become the learner tohave observed her progress, and not interrupt the teacher; but thepigeon kept on her usual cry, "Take two, Taffy, take two" (for thus itis translated in Suffolk), but Mag insisted this was wrong, and that onestick at a time was quite enough; still the pigeon kept on her cry,"Take two, take two," until the teacher in a violent passion gave up theundertaking, exclaiming, "I say that one at a time is plenty, and if youthink otherwise, you may act about the work yourself, for I will have nomore to do with it." Since that time the wood-pigeon has built awretched nest, sure enough, so thin that you may frequently see her twoeggs through it, and if not placed near the body of a tree, or on strongbranches, it is often thrown down by the wind, or the eggs rolled out;yet the young of this bird, before they are half grown, will defendthemselves against any intruder, at which time the parent bird will dashherself down amongst the standing corn or high grass, and behave asthough her wings were broken, and she was utterly disabled; and this shedoes to draw off the enemy from her young; so that this bird is not sofoolish as Mag would make us believe.--R. B.
[5] It is much to be wished that the above letter had contained someinformation on a very curious subject, for I would rather believe theswallow himself than many tales told of them. It has been said that,instead of flying to southern countries, where they can find food and acongenial climate, they dive into the waters of a bog, and lie in atorpid state, through the winter, round the roots of flags andweeds.--R. B.