306 THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF BIRDS chap. 



another man with whom we are familiar is a difficult 

 problem ; we are each of us so isolated from every one 

 else. When it comes to reading the thoughts of a 

 bird, we must expect sometimes to arrive at very 

 wrong results. Poets in ancient times invariably 

 represented the Nightingale as a melancholy bird who 

 poured forth a dirge. They read their own thoughts 

 into the bird's song, like a German commentator 

 who reads profundities into the simplest line of 

 Shakespeare. And then the legend of Philomela 

 made permanent a notion which otherwise might 

 have given place to a more natural one. In this case 

 the modern view can hardly be wrong, that, though no 

 doubt there is a strong admixture of other motives, the 

 Nightingale sings to give vent to his exuberant spirits. 

 There are some birds whose song, if it expresses any- 

 thing at all, expresses the wildest jubilation. Such is 

 the song of the Lark. The Robin, it is true, seems 

 even in spring time to put into his note something 

 of the melancholy of autumn. But what seems 

 melancholy to us need not be so to him. The 

 hideous cry of the Peacock is, no doubt, charming to 

 himself and, very possibly, to the Pea-hen. 



Society has on many birds an exhilarating influence : 

 Rooks when they come home for the night fly round 

 and round, making a babel of cawing, before they 

 settle down to rest. Mr. Hudson 1 describes several 

 great flocks of Crested Screamers singing alternately 

 — a splendid and orderly concert. Wild birds have 

 superabundant health and spirits from the simple fact 

 that illness nearly always means for them speedy 

 1 Naturalist in La Plata, p. 227. 



