78 BIRDS AND MAN 



the bass of the bumble-bee, I admire all. Seriously, 

 however, it strikes me as a very observable instance 

 of providential kindness to men, that such an exact 

 accord has been contrived between his ear and the 

 sounds with which, at least in a rural situation, 

 it is almost every moment visited." 



Who has not felt the truth of this saying, that 

 all natural sounds heard in their proper surround- 

 ings are pleasing ; that even those which we call 

 harsh do not distress, jarring or grating on our 

 nerves, like artificial noises ! The braying of the 

 donkey was to Cowper the one exception in animal 

 life ; but he never heard it in its proper conditions. 

 I have often listened to it, and have been deeply 

 impressed, in a wild, silent country, in a place 

 where herds of semi-wild asses roamed over the 

 plains ; and the sound at a distance had a wild 

 expression that accorded with the scene, and owing 

 to its much greater power effected the mind 

 more than the trumpeting of wild swans, and shrill 

 neighing of wild horses, and other far-reaching 

 cries of wild animals. 



About the sounds emitted by geese in a state 

 of nature, and the effect produced on the mind, 

 I shall have something to say in a chapter on that 

 bird. 



