HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



135 



Almost everybody knows Wordsworth's beautiful 

 poem on the cuckoo ; its note, he says, comes upon 

 us as : 



" A sudden thrill, a joyous thought, 

 A feeling many a day forgot." 



Tlie power of association is quite inexplicable ; 

 strange that the monotonous note of the cuckoo 

 should so often lead us back again as it were to the 

 *' haunted chambers of youth ! " 



"Most musical, most melancholy," writes Milton 

 of the nightingale (Silvia noctiirria) ; but Coleridge 

 says : 



" A melancholy bird ? Oh, idle thought ! 

 In Nature there is nothing melancholy." 



And he goes on to describe the bird's song : 



" They answer and provoke each other's song 

 With skirmishes and capricious passagings. 

 And murmurs musical and swift jug, jug. 

 And one low piping sound more sweet than all." 



Drummond of Hawthornden (1620) says : 



" Thou thy Creator's goodness doth declare. 



What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs 

 (Altered in sweetness) sweetly is not driven 

 Quite to forget Earth's turmoils, spites and wrongs. 

 And lift a reverend eye and thought to Heaven 't " , 



Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. C. Smith, Hurdis, Cowper, 

 and Thomson have all written of the nightingale, 

 and Landor, in his "Imaginary Conversations," says 

 to Southey, " The woodlark and the nightingale and 

 the ring-dove have made me idle for many an hour 

 when I have gone into the fields to collect fresh 

 materials for my composition." We should hardly 

 expect to find many pleasing descriptions of Nature 

 in the artificial school of Pope, but still, in his 

 " Essay on Man," we have the following lines on the 

 pheasant (F/iasiaiius Cokhiciis) : 



" See ! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs. 

 And mounts exultant on triumphant wings ; 

 Short is his joy ; he feels the fiery wound, 

 Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground ; 

 Ah ! what avail his glossy varying dyes. 

 His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes ; 

 The vivid green his shining plumes unfold. 

 His pamted wings and breast that flames with gold." 



Elsewhere the pheasant is spoken of as : 



"The gaudy pheasant rich with varying dyes." 



and R. Bloomfield says : 



" The bold cock-pheasant stalked along the road. 

 Whose gold and purple tints alternate glow'd." 



In the "Essay on Man" we have the following 



lines : 



" Admires the jay, the insect's gilded wings? 

 Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?" 



I suppose Pope meant by the insect with gilded wing 

 a butterfly ; I do not know whether the jay {Garrulns 

 glundarius) ever preys on butterflies, but I have seen 

 "the spotted flycatcher" (Miiscicapa grisola) fly at 

 and attempt to capture the "large white butterfly" 

 {Pier is brassiar). 



The jay is spoken of by Cowper with some favour 

 in the following lines from " The Sofa" : 



" The jay, the pie, and ev'n the boding owl 

 That hails the rising moon, have charms for me." 



There is a remarkable coincidence in Thomson's 



" Spring'' : 



"The jay, the rook, the daw. 

 And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone. 

 Aid the full concert." 



The jay is again mentioned in Hurdis' "The Village 

 Curate": 



" Hark ! how the cuckoo mocks the Sabbath bells. 

 The jay attends, a very termagant." 



Certainly a very good name for the jay ! 



I find the water-ouzel {Cinchis aguatiais) twice 

 mentioned, and the ring-ouzel [Tiirdiis tonjuattis^ 

 once; of the dipper, Carrington siys : 



_ "The bird 

 Is here, — the solitary bird that makes 

 The rock his sole companion." 



But another writer says : 



" The cheerful bird that loves the stream. 

 And the stream's voice, and answers, in like strains 

 Murmuring deliciously." 



Its song is said, indeed, to have a great resemblance 

 to the gurgling sound of water. I find the bird is 

 called in Cumberland "the Bessy Ducker," and it 

 begins to sing as early as January. 



We find the redbreast {Silvia nibccida), the wren. 

 (Silvia troglodytes), the turtle- and ring-doves { Ci?///'w<^j' 

 tiirtiir and Colnmha palltmbiis) frequently mentioned 

 in the poets. The passage on the ring-ouzel (Tardus 

 torqnatus) is from Bidlake's " Nesting of Birds" : 



" The ouzel, lone frequenter of the groves 



Of fragrant pines, in solemn depth of shade finds rest." 



The bird frequents for breeding the wild mountainous 

 hills of Scotland ; it also nests in Yorkshire and 

 Derbyshire. Gilbert White frequently saw them in 

 Hampshire during their migration to their breeding- 

 grounds. Crahame speaks beautifully of the ring- 

 dove's note : 



" How peaceful every sound ! the ring-dove's plaint 

 Moaned from the twilight centre of the grove. 

 While every other woodland lay is mute 

 Save when the wren flits from her down-coved nest. 

 And from the root-sprig trills her ditty clear." 



The following exquisite lines on the robin are from 

 Thomson's " Seasons " : 



" Half afraid, he first 

 Against the window beats ! then brisk alights 

 On the warm hearth ; then, hopping o'er the floor 

 Eyes all the family askance, 

 And pecks, and starts and wonders where he is." 



The turtle-dove, as the nightingale, is invariably 

 spoken of as mournful; the owl as the "■boding 

 owl," or some other similar epithet is applied to it : 



" [t was the o-iul iliat shriek'd, the fatal bellman. 

 Which gives the stern'st good-night." 



— 'Macbeth,' iv. 2. 



"The blast blew cold, the dark ckvI scrcatn'd 

 Her lover's funeral song." 



—Mallet. 



" Vet have I heard .... 



The provjlin^ (r.ijl 

 Sweep by, and with a hideous shriek awake 

 The churchyard echo." 



