LAl^GUAGE OF BIRDS 



and two blackbirds sang constantly in the Square. 

 We got very tired of hearing one of the latter : 

 his song was quite abnormal and very mono- 

 tonous. He struck up soon after five o'clock 

 each morning, and his song, which was often 

 uttered when standing on the ground, was com- 

 posed of an inconsequent idiotic phrase in which 

 the second and fourth notes were the highest. 

 This was repeated over and over again, and was 

 most irritating. Many of the inhabitants of the 

 Square complained bitterly of the bird and asked 

 me if he was mad or love-sick. We had to put 

 up with the performance up to the middle of May 

 when it ceased, and I thought the bird had pro- 

 bably been killed by a cat. But early in the 

 morning of May 27th I was in Lady Holland's 

 Walk when I discovered that the " Mad Black- 

 bird," as he had come to be called, had merely 

 migrated to the grounds of Holland House. My 

 own impression is that he was an old and feeble 

 bird." 



A Scotch correspondent gave another instance. 

 In this case the bird was a thrush. Its peculiar 

 obsession was to utter one loud piping note re- 

 peated tens of thousands of times in the first half 

 of the year. Even when it attempted a normal 

 song every interval was filled up with the exas- 

 perating pipe. 



One usually thinks of the song of birds as a sign 

 of joy, but there is no doubt that a succession of 

 musical notes may at times express a very different 

 emotion. Musical notes, indeed, as we have 

 endeavoured to make clear, are used for the ex- 

 pression of the whole range of feeling that the 

 bird actually experiences. Mr. W. H. Hudson 

 tells us of a bird that he shot when singing. It 

 fell wounded into a stream but still continued its 

 song in the water. Even when retrieved it 

 remained singing in the hand. 



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