The Atlantic Monthly, page 189 by Various Authors
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ng resemblance to the English Robin-Redbreast, being similar in form and size, each having a red breast and short tail-feathers, with only this manifest difference, that one is olive-colored above where the other is blue. But the Blue-Bird does not equal the Redbreast as a songster. His notes are few, not greatly varied, though melodious and sweetly and plaintively modulated, and never loud. On account of their want of variety, they do not enchain a listener, but they constitute a delightful part in the woodland melodies of morn.
The importance of the inferior singers in making up a general chorus is not always appreciated. In an artificial musical composition, as in an oratorio or an anthem, though there is a leading part, which is commonly the air, that gives character to the whole, yet this principal part would often be a very indifferent piece of melody, if performed without its accompaniments. These accompaniments by themselves would seem still more unimportant and trifling. Yet if the composition be the work of a master, however trifling and comparatively insignificant these brief strains or snatches, they are intimately connected with the harmony of the piece, and could not be omitted without a serious derangement of the grand effect. The inferior singing-birds, on the same principle, are indispensable as aids in giving additional effect to the notes of the chief singers.
Though the Robin is the principal musician in the general orison of dawn, his notes would become tiresome, if heard without accompaniments. Nature has so arranged the harmony of this chorus, that one part shall assist another; and so exquisitely has she combined all the different voices, that the silence of any one can never fail to be immediately perceived. The low, mellow warble of the Blue-Bird seems a sort of echo to the louder voice of the Robin; and the incessant trilling or running accompaniment of the Hair-Bird, the twittering of the Swallow, and the loud and melodious piping of the Oriole, frequent and short, are so