SILENCE AND MUSIC 153 



each day. Coming down to the village where one 

 sleeps, it seems like a town full of business and noise, 

 and the sound of a train in the distance has a 

 strangely disturbing effect. The coarse and common 

 sounds of the lowlands do not penetrate into the silent 

 country of the hills. The sounds there are mostly of 

 birds, and these are comparatively few and are not the 

 loud-voiced. Furthermore, when they are the same 

 voices which you are accustomed to hear in hedge and 

 field and orchard, they do not seem quite the same. 

 The familiar note of the homestead has a more delicate, 

 spiritualised sound. The common characteristic song- 

 sters of the islands and miniature forests of furze are 

 the linnet, whitethroat, dunnock, meadow pipit, yellow- 

 hammer, common bunting, whinchat, and stonechat. 

 They are none of them loud-voiced, and their songs 

 do not drown or kill one another, but are rather in 

 harmony and suited to that bright quiet land. I have 

 said that the song-thrush among other birds of the 

 orchard goes to the downs and sometimes breeds 

 there. Now, although I am as fond of the music of 

 this thrush as any one can be, heard from the tree- 

 tops in woods and lanes and fields, where it sounds 

 best, it was never a welcome voice on the downs. 

 I seldom heard it in those wilder quiet furze islands 

 among the high hills; and if the loud staccato song 

 burst out in such a place I always had a strong in- 

 clination to go out of my way and throw a stone at 

 the singer to silence him. On the other hand, I 



