172 THE BUNTINGS 



His song may be a plain-song, but at least it is plain. It may be 

 urged, however, and I think with justice, that Miliaria, though he attain 

 them not, yet attempts higher things than the other, and I have read 

 somewhere I think in some minor poet that high failure is to be 

 estimated above low success. Well, I do not hold so, and I wish 

 minor poets would not either they wrong themselves by such 

 fancies, they had better be whole frogs than burst ones. That the 

 corn-bunting " would, an if he could" I am ready to admit, but since 

 he cannot, what is the value of that ? The little ditty of the yellow- 

 hammer may not aspire to much, but it appears to hit what it aims at. 

 In short to sum up the difference between the two birds, in this regard 

 as a minor poet the yellow-hammer may be said to have " arrived," 

 as a great one the corn-bunting has not. 



In appearance, too, it must be conceded that Citrinella, if he be 

 not the better bunting, is at any rate the better bird he has the finer 

 feathers undoubtedly. No need to describe him and yet (to confess 

 it) in spite of his colouring, of his bright, sunny yellow, shaded with 

 soft olives and rich, chestnut browns, there is something about him 

 partly in his looks, more perhaps in what he makes of them which 

 has always led me to think of him as an undistinguished bird. It is 

 not because he is common (in numbers I mean), I repudiate that 

 but there is something, a want of pose, perhaps, in his attitudes, of 

 purity, almost of definition, in his outline you may call it blurred on 

 a dull day that does not set him oft' to advantage. In fact, though 

 he has brightness he lacks distinction, which many more quiet birds 

 have. His actions may be pleasing, but they are unsalient, they slip 

 away from one, making him soon to be lost in the landscape, as a 

 yellow leaf is lost in it. 



All is not plumage in bird-land. By their personalities, more 

 than by their outwardnesses, some of its denizens fly in front of the 

 canvas, others would, if they could, get behind it. In spite of his 

 size and his song, in spite even of some grotesqueries in the season of 

 courtship, E. miliaria is, upon the whole, unassertive, blending, not 



