74 BIRDS AND MAN 



always vague about natural sounds, than of what 

 the poet Cowper had said in the best passage in 

 his best work about " sounds harsh and inhar- 

 monious in themselves," which are yet able to 

 produce a soothing effect on us on account of the 

 peaceful scenes amid which they are heard. 



Cowper's notion of the daw's voice, by the way, 

 was just as false as that expressed by Ruskin, as 

 we may find in his paraphrase of Vincent Bourne's 

 lines to that bird : — 



There is a bird that by his coat, 

 And by the hoarseness of his note 

 Might be supposed a crow. 



Now the daw is capable at times of emitting 

 both hoarse and harsh notes, and the same may 

 perhaps be said of a majority of birds ; but his 

 usual note — the cry or caw varied and inflected 

 a hundred ways, which we hear every day and all 

 day long where daws abound — is neither harsh 

 like the crow's, nor hoarse like the rook's. It is, 

 in fact, as unlike the harsh, grating caw of the 

 former species as the clarion call of the cock is 

 unlike the grunting of swine. It may not be de- 

 scribed as bell-like nor metallic, but it is loud and 

 clear, with an engaging wildness in it, and, like 

 metallic sounds, far-reaching ; and of so good 



