And what is that song, sudden, loud, sweet, yet faltering, as if half
ashamed? Is it the willow wren or the garden warbler? The two
birds, though very remotely allied to each other, are so alike in
voice, that it is often difficult to distinguish them, unless we
attend carefully to the expression. For the garden warbler,
beginning in high and loud notes, runs down in cadence, lower and
softer, till joy seems conquered by very weariness; while the willow
wren, with a sudden outbreak of cheerfulness, though not quite sure
(it is impossible to describe bird-songs without attributing to the
birds human passions and frailties) that he is not doing a silly
thing, struggles on to the end of his story with a hesitating
hilarity, in feeble imitation of the black-cap's bacchanalian
dactyls.
And now, again--is it true that
'In Nature there is nothing melancholy'
Mark that slender, graceful, yellow warbler, running along the high
oak boughs like a perturbed spirit, seeking restlessly, anxiously,
something which he seems never to find; and uttering every now and
then a long anxious cry, four or five times repeated, which would be
a squeal, were it not so sweet.
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