238 NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 



between two owls, reclaimed a sultan,* before delighting in 

 conquest and devastation ; but I would be thought only to mean 

 that many of the winged tribes have various sounds and voices 

 adapted to express their various passions, wants, and feelings ; 

 such as anger, fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All 

 species are not equally eloquent; some are copious and fluent 

 as it were in their utterance, while others are confined to a few 

 important sounds : no bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, 1 

 though some are rather silent. The language of birds is very 

 ancient, and, like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical ; 

 Jittle is said, but much is meant and understood. 



The notes of the eagle-kind are shrill and piercing ; and about 

 the season of nidification much diversified, as I have been often 

 assured by a curious observer of Nature, who long resided at 

 Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much 

 resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive 

 notes ; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox 

 Humana^ and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This 

 note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males ; 

 they use also a quick call and a horrible scream ; and can snore 

 and hiss when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides their loud 

 croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the woods to 

 echo ; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous ; 

 rooks, in the breeding season, attempt sometimes in the gaiety of 

 their hearts to sing, but with no great success; the parrot-kind 

 have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to 

 learn human sounds ; doves coo in an amorous and mournful 

 manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers ; the woodpecker 

 sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh ; the fern-owl, or goat- 

 sucker, from the dusk till day-break,. serenades his mate with the 

 clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their 

 complacency by sweet modulations, and a variety of melody. 

 The swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrill 

 alarm bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and bids 

 them be aware the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, 

 especially the nocturnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are 

 * See Spectator, Vol. vii., No. 512. 



