NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 231 
Sohal lied se Pane ew © 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, Sept. oth, 1778. 
DEAR SIR,—From the motion of birds, the transition is natural 
enough to their notes and language, of which I shailsay something. 
Not that I would pretend to understand their language like the 
vizier ; who, by the recital of a conversation which passed between 
two owls reclaimed a sultan,* before delighting in conquest and 
devastation ; but I would be thought only to mean that many of 
the winged tribes have various sounds and voices adapted to ex- 
press their various passions, wants, and feelings; such as anger, 
fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally 
eloqnent ; some are copious and fluent as it were in their utterance, 
while others are confined to a few important sounds: no bird, like 
the fish kind, is quite mute, though some are rather silent. The 
language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient modes of 
speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and 
understood. 
The notes of the eagle-kind are shrill and piercing ; and about 
the season of nidification much diversified, as I have been often 
assured by a curious observer of Nature, who long resided at 
Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much 
resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive 
notes ; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox 
humana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This 
note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males ; 
they use also a quick call and an horrible scream; and can snore > 
and hiss when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides their loud 
croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the woods to 
echo ; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous ; 
* See Spectator. Vol. vii., No. 512. 
+ Fish are not all mute. The grey gurnard, 777ela eurnardus, called crooner from its 
Noise, may be seen in a calm day in large shoals rising and ploughing the surface of the 
sea with their noses, at which time they utter a grunting sound which may be heard at a 
distance of half a mile; we have heard them called gruxters. Schomburck writes of the 
Phractocephains of the Guiana rivers ‘‘that when hauled on shore they make a loud 
grunting noise.’’ 
