AN OWL’S HEAD HOLIDAY. 265 
in the darkness of daylight. So difficult is it, 
we may suppose, for even an owl to put himself 
in another’s place and see with another’s eyes. 
This little episode over, I turned again to 
the birch-tree, and fortunately the warbler’s 
throat was of too fiery a color to remain long 
concealed ; though it was at once a pleasure 
and an annoyance to find myself still unac- 
quainted with at least one song out of the 
Blackburnian’s repertory. In times past I had 
carefully attended to his music, and within only 
a few days, in the White Mountain Notch, I 
had taken note of two of its variations; but 
here was still another, which neither began 
with zillup, zillup, nor ended with zip, zip, 
—notes which I had come to look upon as the 
Blackburnian’s sign-vocal. Yet it must have 
been my fault, not his, that I failed to recognize 
him ; for every bird’s voice has something char- 
acteristic about it, just as every human voice 
has tones and inflections which those who are 
sufficiently familiar with its owner will infalli- 
bly detect. The ear feels them, although words 
cannot describe them. Articulate speech is but 
a modern invention, as it were, in comparison 
with the five senses; and since practice makes 
perfect, it is natural enough that every one of 
the five should easily, and as a matter of course, 
perceive shades of difference so slight that lan- 
