ong at each repetition was the same.
Nevertheless this bird is not so monotonous a singer as he is reputed.
A lover of open places, of commons and waste lands, with a bush or dwarf
tree for tower to sit upon, he is yet one of the most common species in
the thickly timbered country of the Otter, Clyst, and Sid, in which I
had been rambling, hearing him every day and all day long. Throughout
that district, where the fields are small, and the trees big and near
together, he has the cirl-bunting's habit of perching to sing on the
tops of high hedgerow elms and oaks.

By and by I had a better bird to listen to--a redstart. A female flew
down within fifteen yards of me; her mate followed and perched on a dry
twig, where he remained a long time for so shy and restless a creature.
He was in perfect plumage, and sitting there, motionless in the strong
sunlight, was wonderfully conspicuous, the gayest, most exotic-looking
bird of his family in England. Quitting his perch, he flew up into
a tree close by and began singing; and for half an hour thereafter I
continued intently listening to his brief strain, repeated at short
intervals--a song which I think has never been perfectly described.
"Practice makes perfect" is an axiom that does not apply to the art
of song in the bird world; since the redstart, a member of a highly
melodious family, with a good voice to start with, has never attained to
excellence in spite of much practising. The song is interesting both
on account of its exceptional inferiority and of its character. A
distinguished ornithologist has said that little birds have two ways of
making themselves attractive--by melody and by bright plumage; and that
most species excel in one or the other way; and that the acquisition of
gay colours by a species of a sober-coloured melodious family will
cause it to degenerate as a songster. He is speaking of the redstart.
Unfortunately for the rule there are too many exceptions. Thus confining
ourselves to a single family--that of the finches--in our own islands,
the most modest coloured have the least melody, while those that have
the gayest plumage are the best singers--the goldfinch, chaffinch,
siskin, and linnet. Nevertheless it is impossible to listen for any
length of time to the redstart, and to many redstarts, without feeling,
almost with irritation, that its strain is only the prelude of a song--a
promise never performed; that once upon a time in the remote past it
was a