122 BIRDS AND MAN 



to the house he proceeded to describe the song 

 and ask the name of the singer. No one could 

 tell him, and much .to his surprise, his account of 

 the melody was received with smiles of amusement 

 and incredulity. He described it as a song that 

 was like a wonderfully bright and delicate human 

 voice talking or laughingly saying something rather 

 than singing. It was not until some time after- 

 wards that the bird-lover in a strange land dis- 

 covered that his little talker and laugher among 

 the leaves was the willow wren. In vain he had 

 turned to the ornithological works ; the song he 

 had heard, or at all events the song as he had 

 heard it, was not described therein ; and yet to this 

 day he cannot hear it differently — cannot dissociate 

 the sound from the idea of a fairy-like child with 

 an exquisitely pure, bright, spiritual voice laugh- 

 ingly speaking in some green place. 



And yet Gilbert White over a century ago had 

 noted the human quality in the willow wren's voice 

 when he described it as an " easy, joyous, laugh- 

 ing note." It is still better to be able to quote 

 Mr Warde Fowler, when writing in A Year with 

 the Birds, on the futile attempts which are often 

 made to represent birds' songs by means of our 

 notation, since birds are guided in their songs by 



