IvANGUAGE OF BIRDS 



Human Quai^ity in Birds' Song. 



Mr. Warde Fowler once wrote : — ' ' Strange as 

 it may seem, the song of birds may be more justly 

 compared with the human voice when speaking 

 than with a musical instrument or the human 

 voice when singing." Certain critics deny this. 

 Dr. Walter Collinge, for instance, tells us that he 

 has listened to the rapturous torrent of the sky- 

 lark, the beautiful modulations of the willow- 

 wren and blackcap, and the song of the nightingale, 

 and has failed altogether to catch any human 

 note. 



Of course, it is true that the tone of birds' 

 songs differs materially from that of the 

 human voice, but can it be truly said that 

 birds' songs and call-notes are less like the 

 human voice than other sounds in nature ? 

 In the sounds that proceed from inanimate things 

 — the falling of a stone, the breaking of a branch, 

 the sigh of the wind, and the beating of the sea — 

 we find no expression of the thing itself, no clue 

 to any inner feeling trying to make itself known. 

 The wing-beats of the insect are mechanical ; 

 they tell us nothing of love or hate. The voices 

 of mammals are devoid of range, they are for the 

 most part incapable of indicating any but the 

 crudest sensations. 



Where, then, in the whole realm of nature, 

 shall we find anything more nearly akin to the 

 human than the voices of the birds ? Here we 

 have clearly life speaking to life — living things 

 " a little apart from us truly," yet with love, anger, 

 fear, maternal solicitudes, warnings against danger 

 and a hundred other subtle things in their hearts, 

 which they desire to express, and which we are 

 able to interpret because they are so closely akin 

 to our own. 



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