24 BIRDS AND MAN 



Each has a melody perfect of its kind : the song of 

 the foreign bird is not fluty nor mellow nor placid 

 like that of the blackbird, but has in a high degree 

 that quality of plaintiveness and gladness com- 

 mingled which we admire in some fresh and very 

 beautiful human voices, like that described in 

 Lowell's lines " To Perdita Singing " : — 



It hath caught a touch of sadness, 



Yet it is not sad ; 

 It hath tones of clearest gladness, 



Yet it is not glad. 



Again, that foreign song is composed of many 

 notes, and is poured out in a stream, as a sky-lark 

 sings ; and it is also singular on account of the con- 

 trast between these notes which suggest human 

 feeling and a purely metallic, bell-like sound, which, 

 coming in at intervals, has the effect of the triangle 

 in a band of wind instruments. The image of this 

 beautiful song is as distinct in my mind as that of 

 the blackbird which I heard every day last summer 

 from every green place. 



Doubtless there are some and perhaps a good 

 many ornithologists among us who have been abroad 

 to observe the bird life of distant countries, and who 

 when at home find that the sound-impressions they 

 have received are not persistent, or, if not wholly 



