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9 2 



SPRING 



we first hear the turtle-dove and before the marsh marigold 

 petals drop from their beaked seeds. 



Where are we to draw the line between song and a mere 

 cry? It must be a rather arbitrary one, unless it is false to 

 nature. To speak of a rook's song would seem absurd ; yet 

 no one can watch the rooks tossing in airy column with varied 

 utterance on a soft October day, or solemnly chorusing in the 

 April elm-tops, without feeling that their cawing notes are 

 song, almost if not quite as much as the thrush's music at 



the same opposing seasons. 

 The name of song can only 

 be denied to the very 

 harshest cries with which 

 birds express their intense 

 inner vitality, such as the 

 yelp of the sea-gull or the 

 squawk of the moorhen on 

 the pond. Even the scream 

 of the jay — perhaps the 

 only absolutely discordant 

 cry of any British bird — is 

 full of that joy of life which is half of nature's music. The 

 jay has a faint and seldom-heard song as well ; but most of 

 its high spirits in spring seem to run to screeches. Nor is 

 there any absolute distinction between the song of birds and 

 their so-called alarm-notes and call-notes. They will some- 

 times burst into song at moments of anxiety or pain, as when 

 they flutter round the disturber of their nest, or have been 

 injured by a stone-throwing boy. Keen emotion of any kind 

 may produce song ; but usually it is due to their vitality and 

 high spirits. Their blood is much hotter than that of most 

 other quadrupeds and bipeds ; their normal temperature is 

 that of high fever in man. Their song is a sort of soul 



JAY 



