88 BIRDS AND MAN 



too close, for the nearest trees were fifty yards 

 distant. Glancing up at the open window of an 

 upper room in the cottage, I made the discovery 

 that my supposed pigeon was a four-year-old child 

 who had recently been chastised by his mother 

 and sent upstairs to do penance. There he sat 

 by the open window, his face in his hands, crying, 

 not as if his heart would break, but seeming to 

 take a mournful pleasure in the rhythmical sound 

 of his own sobs and moans ; they had settled into 

 a rising and falling boo-hoo, with regularly recur- 

 ring long and short notes, agreeable to the ear, 

 and very creditable to the little crier's musical 

 capacity. The incident shows how much the 

 pigeon's plaint resembles some human sounds. 



The plain cooing note is so common in this order 

 of birds that it may be regarded as the original 

 and universal pigeon language, out of which the 

 set songs have been developed, with, in most in- 

 stances, but little change in the quality of the 

 sound. In the multitude of species there are 

 voices clear, resonant, thick, or husky, or guttural, 

 hollow or booming, grating and grunting ; but, 

 however much they vary, you can generally detect 

 the pigeon or family sound, which is more or less 

 human-like. In some species the set song has 



