DAWS IN THE WEST COUNTRY 77 



we are just on the point of surrendering it ... I 

 sit with all the windows and the door wide open, 

 and am regaled with the scent of every flower in 

 a garden as full of flowers as I have known how 

 to make it. We keep no bees, but if I lived in a 

 hive I could hardly have more of their music. All 

 the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of 

 mignonette opposite to the window, and pay me 

 for the honey they get out of it by a hum, which, 

 though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my 

 ears as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds 

 that nature utters are delightful, at least in this 

 country. I should not perhaps find the roaring 

 of lions in Africa, or of bears in Russia, very pleas- 

 ing ; but I know no beast in England whose voice 

 I do not account as musical, save and except always 

 the braying of an ass. The notes of all our birds 

 and fowls please me, without one exception. I 

 should not indeed think of keeping a goose in a 

 cage that I might hang him up in the parlour for 

 the sake of his melody, but a goose upon a common, 

 or in a farmyard, is no bad performer ; and as to 

 insects, if the black beetle, and beetles indeed of 

 all hues, will keep out of my way, I have no objec- 

 tion to any of the rest ; on the contrary, in what- 

 ever key they sing, from the gnat's fine treble to 



