THE

BIRDS OF SCOTLAND.

Per virides passim ramos sua tecta volucres
Concelebrant, mulcentque vagis loca sola querelis.

BUCHANAN.

VOL. II.

THE

BIRDS OF SCOTLAND

PART FIRST.

THE Woodland song, the various vocal quires,
That harmonize fair Scotia's streamy vales;
Their habitations, and their little joys;

The winged dwellers on the leas, and moors,

And mountain cliffs; the woods, the streams, them

selves,

The sweetly rural, and the savage scene,

Haunts of the plumy tribes,-be these my theme!

Come, Fancy, hover high as eagle's wing: Bend thy keen eye o'er Scotland's hills and dales; Float o'er her farthest isles; glance o'er the main ; Or, in this briery dale, flit with the wren,

From twig to twig; or, on the grassy ridge,
Low nestle with the LARK: Thou, simple bird,
Of all the vocal quire, dwell'st in a home
The humblest; yet thy morning song ascends.
Nearest to heaven,-sweet emblem of his song,*
Who sung thee wakening by the daisy's side!

With earliest spring, while yet the wheaten blade Scarce shoots above the new-fall'n shower of snow, The skylark's note, in short excursion, warbles: Yes! even amid the day-obscuring fall,

I've marked his wing winnowing the feathery flakes,
In widely-circling horizontal flight.

But, when the season genial smiles, he towers
In loftier poise, with sweeter, fuller pipe,
Chearing the ploughman at his furrow end,-
The while he clears the share, or, listening, leans
Upon his paddle-staff, and, with raised hand,
Shadows his half-shut eyes, trying to scan
The songster melting in the flood of light.

On tree, or bush, no Lark is ever seen:
The daisied lea he loves, where tufts of grass
Luxuriant crown the ridge; there, with his mate,
He founds their lowly house, of withered bents,

* Burns.