150 BIRDS AND BIRDS. 



delicacy of ours. How much the thousands of years 

 of contact with man, and familiarity with artificial 

 sounds, over there, have affected the bird voices is a 

 question. Certain it is that their birds are much 

 more domestic than ours, and certain it is that all 

 purely wild sounds are plaintive and elusive. Even 

 of the bark of the fox, the cry of the panther, the 

 voice of the 'coon, or the call and clang of wild 

 geese and ducks, or the war-cry of savage tribes, is 

 this true ; but not true in the same sense of domesti- 

 cated or semi-domesticated animals and fowls. How 

 different the .,voice of the common duck or goose from 

 that of the wild species, or of the tame dove from 

 that of the turtle of the fields and groves. Where 

 could the English house-sparrow have acquired that 

 unmusical voice but amid the sounds of hoofs and 

 wheels, and the discords of the street. And the or- 

 dinary notes and calls of so many of the British birds, 

 according to their biographers, are harsh and disa- 

 greeable ; even the nightingale has an ugly, guttural 

 " chuck." The missel-thrush has a harsh scream ; 

 the jay a note like " wrack," " wrack " ; the field- 

 fare a rasping chatter ; the blackbird, which is our 

 robin cut in ebony, will sometimes crow like a cock 

 and cackle like a hen ; the flocks of starlings make 

 a noise like a steam saw-mill; the whitethroat has 

 a disagreeable note ; the swift a discordant scream ; 

 and the bunting a harsh song. Among our song- 

 birds, on the contrary, it is rare to hear a harsh or 

 displeasing voice. Even their notes of anger and 

 alarm are more or less soft. 



