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When these West Indian islands were first settled by Spanish emigrants, they were the home of myriads of birds of every tropical variety, but to-day the feathered beauties and merry songsters have been entirely driven away from some of the smaller islands, and decimated on others, by the demand for bird's wings with which to deck ladies' bonnets in Europe and America.
I looked after with longing eyes not that I had any desire to be, of their company far from it, indeed but gazing upon the beautiful forms of vegetation that adorned the banks of this savage river, listening to the sweet music that came from a thousand bright-plumed songsters amid the woods, I longed once more to set my feet upon the firm earth; I longed to be alone, to wander alone and free, away under the shadow of those majestic trees.
Our wanderers awoke the next morning from a long and refreshing sleep, and on rolling away the stone from the outlet of the cavern they found the sun up, and the forest vocal with the feathered songsters.
It is said to be a compound of the harmony of all other forest songsters; and yet I see little resemblance to the honest language of a soldier, in its manner of utterance." "It speaketh without much meaning; and oftener to cheat the ear, than in honest reason." "Thou forgettest that which I told thee in the morning, child.
Especially do they revel on the lawns at Tahoe Tavern, their red-breasts and their peculiar "smithing" or "cokeing" just as alluring and interesting as the plumage and voices of the richer feathered and finer songsters of the bird family. Mountain quails are quite common, and one sometimes sees a dozen flocks in a day. Grouse are fairly plentiful.
The man also brought the first news of the surrender, a rumor which all refused to believe, although even the possibility filled all breasts with terrible forebodings. Could it be true? No! a thousand times no! And yet, oh, the dread, the anguish of waiting to know. The bright sunlight, the waving trees, the joyous notes of the feathered songsters seemed a mockery.
Basketfuls of thrushes and blackbirds, and strings of smaller varieties—linnets, sparrows, robins, finches, even the diminutive gold-finches, most beautiful, most gay, and most innocent of all songsters—are being hawked about by leathern-lunged contadini, who, alas! always manage to find customers in plenty.
"Begorrah, Tom," he said after a pause, during which his eyes were apparently fixed on the celebrated `Peak' for which Teneriffe is better known in the present day than on account of its canaries; for it is over four hundred years since these little songsters were first discovered by the Spaniards and imported into Europe, so that any novelty that might have been attached to them has long since disappeared, "Oi'll git some ov the purty craychurs fur yer sisther if we're 'lowed ashore afore we lave."
We traced the flowery banks of babbling brooks, walked beneath the grand arches of beautiful forests made melodious by the songsters of the grove, but I could not forget the terrible scenes I had witnessed at Niagara." The day was set for Esock Mayall and the chief's adopted daughter to be joined in Hymen's silken bands, according to the custom of the tribe, commanded by their war-chief.
For myself, I do not know one tune from another. I am like the man who said that he knew two tunes, one was "God save the Queen," and the other was not. And yet to-day I have as good a heart for singing as ever had any of the most famous songsters. In tune, out of tune, I must lift up my voice. It is as urgent a need for me as for any mellow thrush.
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