Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Usage examples of "song-bird".
Life is full of numbness and of balk, Of haltingness and baffled short-coming, Of promise unfulfilled, of everything That is puffed vanity and empty talk: Its very bud hangs cankered on the stalk, Its very song-bird trails a broken wing, Its very Spring is not indeed like Spring, But sighs like Autumn round an aimless walk.
Dead song-birds were easier to spot and Sezarre went straight to the steward who soon had a lad picking the sad little corpses from the floor of the aviaries belonging to Laio and Mahli.