May — Canaries. 135 



may sometimes become importunate. There is a land- 

 scape-painter in Paris who is a great canary-fancier, and 

 has a very large cage full of these birds in the studio 

 where he paints. So long as he is alone it may be very 

 delightful, for perhaps his little yellow friends sing to 

 him with moderation ; but no sooner does a visitor enter 

 the room and try to begin a conversation than all the 

 canaries set up such a clatter that no human voice is 

 audible. 



The birds in the free woods fill the air incessantly 

 in spring with their merry noises, but their garrulity 

 never tries our patience like that of the poor prisoners 

 in cages. Is it really music that they make, and do 

 they charm the ear as music does, or move some fibre 

 of poetic sentiment in our hearts ? I believe that the 

 feeling they reach within us is a poetical and not a 

 musical feeling. The notes of birds may be imitated 

 with deceptive accuracy, and yet a concert of such 

 imitations would not attract an audience. The wild 

 bird utters its notes and we are delighted ; the human 

 imitator accurately reproduces the same notes with in- 

 geniously contrived whistles, and we remain indifferent. 

 Here, too, is another consideration which may be worth 

 notice. So long as one bird performs a solo it may be 

 a melody, but when half-a-dozen are singing at the 

 same time is it concerted music that they sing ? Does 

 each of them take his part in a general harmony, like a 

 chorus-singer at the opera ? No, their science is not 

 equal to any thing requiring subordination of parts. 

 And the plain truth is, that the warbling of a multitude 



