34 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



cise of reason, or the growth of new interests, by the lapse of 



time, or the consolations of religion, recover, after a severe 



blow, their original serenity and even light-heartedness, is 



sufficiently intelligible. But what would the world say of 



any bridegroom, torn away from the arms of his bride, and 



shut up in a kennel ; or of a young father kidnapped in the 



bosom of his young family, and ignominiously imprisoned in 



a fowl-run, who should straightway behave himself with the 



utmost gaiety, and exhibit to passers-by every symptom of 



happiness? Yet this is what the blackbird, caught in full 



song during the pairing season, does. He goes on singing just 



as if nothing had happened. It may be, of course, that the 



brief days of moping through which the poor bird passes, 



correspond to long years of human sorrowing, and that then 



hope revives, and the blackbird, remembering how song used 



to be "once upon a time" associated with all the joys of 



home and home-life, thinks that if he only sings long enough 



and well enough, they may all come back again. But surely 



there cannot be any happiness in that happy-sounding song ? 



Love-notes of birds are generally unmusical and often 

 grotesque. When they are pretty they are monosyllabic. 

 So the emotions that prompt lengthened melody are, as a rule, 

 the sterner and unamiable. Anger, defiance, pride and 

 possessiveness supply the motives of their songs. 



When a lion is amiable, he is quiet ; his loudest utterance 

 is a yawn ; when courting, he grunts and hiccoughs ; when 



