8 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



may often hear, sitting in the woods, when wood- 

 pigeons are cooing in the spring. Almost always 

 they are invisible, and it is by the ear, alone, that one 

 must judge of what is going on. Everywhere 

 comes the familiar " Roo, coo, oo, oo-oo," and this, 

 if you are not very close, is all you hear, and it sug- 

 gests that one bird is sitting alone — at least alone in 

 its tree, though answered perhaps from another. 

 Sometimes, however, one happens to be at the foot 

 of the tree oneself, and then, if one listens attentively, 

 one will generally hear a single note, much lower, and 

 even softer than the other which precedes it, a long- 

 drawn, hoarse— but sweetly, tenderly hoarse — "oo." 

 The instant this has been uttered, comes the note we 

 know, the two tones being different, and suggesting 

 — which, I believe, is the case — that the first utter- 

 ance is the tender avowal of the one bird, the next 

 the instant and impassioned response of the other. 



There is, perhaps, as much monotonous sameness 

 — certainly as much of expressive tenderness — in the 

 coo of the wood-pigeon as in any sound in nature, and 

 yet, if one listens a little, one will find a good deal of 

 variety in it. Every individual bird has its own 

 intonation, and whilst, in the greatest number, this 

 "speaks of all loves" as it should do, in some few 

 a coo seems almost turned into a scream. Some- 

 times, too, I have remarked a peculiar vibration in 

 the cooing of one of these birds, due, I think, to 

 there being hardly any pause between the several 

 notes, which are, usually, well separated. Such 

 a difference does this make in the character of 

 the sound, that, at first, one might hardly recognise 

 it as belonging to the same species. Even in the 



