The Mounted Thrush Everyone who has listened fondly to the
songs of birds in the early part of the gear has noticed th crescendo of the song. It tends to increase in length and volume as the arc of the sun rises. Another point, of which I have heard no mention, is suggested by the behaviour of a particular missel-thrush. He began singing, like a large number of our native .birds, notably the chaffinch, unusually early in the year, though, like turdus musicus, he may sing an odd song at any date. Now these more precocious songs were delivered from a low perch ; but as the light increased be climbed higher and higher day after day till he acquired a right to Tennyson's epithet, "the mounted thrush." I am inclined to think that this climbing of the ladder as spring advances is more or less normal. The birds sing from a higher perch as the last spiral to a greater height. How very near the foot of the hedge sound the first songs of hedge-sparrow and jenny wren!
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