HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



169 



WORDS OF BIRDS. 



By J. H. GORDON, B.A. OxoN. 



SUPPOSE many 

 people will dis- 

 believe me and 

 think me foolish 

 for tr}ing to fool 

 them, but it is not 

 so. I am as sane 

 and as honest as 

 most men are ; 

 and so, when I 

 say I can under- 

 stand and appre- 

 ciate the songs 

 and languages of 

 birds, you can 

 take it or leave it 

 just as you will. 



Now there must 

 be no mistake, and 

 so I had better 

 say at once that I 

 cannot understand all birds ; any more than Professor 

 Max Miiller can understand all the languages of 

 men, in this best of possible worlds ; no, that would 

 be rather a big job, to say the least of it, though the 

 language of birds when you once understand the 

 method of it, is not nearly so hard as one would 

 expect. 



If I had my choice, in fact, I would much rather 

 take up the grammar of a rook, or even a common 

 and vulgar sparrow — and the sparrow is vulgar, too, 

 sometimes when he likes — than wade through the 

 horrible inflexions, conjugations, declensions, and 

 other monstrosities, that hide their sweetness under 

 the names of Latin and Greek, and what not. 



Ves, there is much to be said in favour of the 

 speech of the playful warbler. He is in general 

 simple and honest in his likes and dislikes, and in ex- 

 pressing these likes and dislikes. Here and there I 

 do not deny, I have come across a very Gladstone 

 amongst the rooks, who would gather in a crowd and 

 No. 320. — August 1891. 



talk to them literally for hours ; but he was an ex- 

 ception, and it usually ended in his starting a new — 

 being compelled to start — a new realm of wisdom 

 by his own account. 



With the sparrow, too, I have some fault to find ; 

 his language is not always so decorous as it should 

 be ; indeed, to hear what the sparrow — the London 

 one, especially — says, when he is disturbed at a feast, 

 or the grain spilt from a passing horse's nose-bag, is 

 simply horrible, and would often make me, had I 

 been some what thinner and lighter in bulk, pick up 

 a stone and teach them a lesson. 



After all, the sparrow must be forgiven much, for 

 he is a very talented bird ; he has a greater proportion 

 of brains to his body than pretty well any other bird, 

 and a great deal more ideas. A very gifted bird is 

 the sparrow, though he does swear terribly and gamble 

 all the sunny days on the house-tops, and jeer 

 wickedly at the homely cat. But great men have 

 great vices as well as great virtues ; and so is it in 

 bird-land. 



Let us look at another warbler who is very much 

 more greatly admired, and yet whose brains are the 

 minimum possible to the realm of air. The nightin- 

 gale is the one I refer to ; and every one knows how 

 even delicate girls will go out at night-time to hear 

 this songster ; and yet with all this glory, he has the 

 smallest vocabulary than any bird I know of. I 

 fancy if the charming maidens who listen shivering 

 and wondering to him as he sings in the neighbouring 

 bush, knew what he meant, they would have him 

 away in disgust. 



For this sweet songster, the nightingale, is an awful 

 gourmand ; and thinks of nothing but filling himself 

 with worms, grain, anything in fact that comes to hand. 

 When he sets them so simply, and we all believe him 

 to be singing to his mate, he's doing no such thing ; 

 it's the early worm he's singing to, it's the early worm 

 he is glorifying with that divine music ; and it is 

 because the early worm is later than usual, that he 

 sings at all. 



I 



