264 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



it is time to bestir oneself. " Whit ! " No. I deny 

 it. Even when it ends there, when there is nothing 

 more than that in the bird's mind, it is not " whit," 

 but " queek " that it says — *'queek, queek, queek, 

 queek," a quavering little note, with a sharp sound 

 — the long e — always. " Queek,'* then, ''''pas ' whit^ 

 Monsieur Fleur ant. Whit I Ah, Monsieur Fleurant^ 

 c*est se moquer. Mettez, mettez ' queek^ s^il vous 

 plaitr But what is this *' queek " — though re- 

 peated more than twice — compared with such a 

 jubilee as I have just described, and which the birds 

 are constantly making ? Express it syllabically as 

 one may, it is something very uncommon and 

 striking — a little thin burst of rejoicing — and it lasts 

 for some time : not to be passed off as a mere 

 desultory remark or so, therefore — call it what one 

 will — which almost any bird might make. 



Besides, it is not merely what a bird says, that 

 one would like to know, but what it means, and 

 how it says it. One would like a description, 

 where there is anything to describe, and no one, I 

 am sure, could see a pair of dabchicks put their 

 heads together and break out like this, and then 

 say, tout court — without comment, even, much less 

 enthusiasm, as though it exhausted the matter — 

 " the note is a whit, whit." No, no one could be 

 so cold-blooded. Though an alphabet of letters 

 may follow his name, the dabchick is a sealed book 

 to any one who writes of it like that. So now, 

 coming again to the meaning of this little duet, 

 there can, as I say, be no doubt that it expresses 

 contentment, but this contentment is not of a quiet 

 kind. It is raised, for the moment, to a pitch of 



