THE BEST SINGER.
It is an old controversy : which bird's song is the sweetest. So beautiful a denial of my claim for the blackbird reaches me, from a London observer, that I must quote it ; and I do not know that ever I heard a claim for this particular bird : " Did you never get a shock of delight in the burst of song from the unsuspected water ousel on a December day ? I remember at my home in Dorset getting ready for a Nativity Play in a malting barn. A little brook coming from the main mill-stream to join the river Arne ran by the barn. It was very cold and the doors were shut. I suddenly heard a song so loud and sweet that I crept out to hear the marvel closer. On the stones in the brook an ousel was moving, singing as it moved. Three days it sang and then it went." Whichever is the best song, that description, though the nature of the song is left to the imagination, seems to me one of the most persuasive I ever read. There is a special pleasure in the early wintry songs ; and perhaps for this reason the missel thrush has an exaggerated reputation, though he may justly claim some of the finest notes of ousel, blackbird and thrush.
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