244 The Birds of Virgil. 



Damoetas and Daphnis hear the birds singing, 

 and the murmur of the bees : 



"Aeiftov Kopvfiol KOI eucavfliSee, eorfi'c Tpvywv, 



"the larks and the acanthides were singing, and 

 the turtle-dove was moaning." But what kind of 

 bird was Theocritus himself thinking of? Here 

 we must have recourse to Aristotle, who in his 

 book on birds describes the bird known to the 

 Greeks as ac an this as being "'of poor colouring 

 and habits, but having a clear shrill voice." 1 This 

 cannot possibly be the Goldfinch, the happiest 

 and most brightly coloured of our smaller English 

 birds ; one too whose song would hardly be picked 

 out to be described as Aiyupa, which word denotes 

 a sustained high and shrill sound, and would not 

 well express a twitter or a quiet warble. Sun- 

 devall, the Swedish scholar-naturalist, has pro- 

 nounced this acanthis of Aristotle to be the linnet ; 

 a conclusion with which no one would be likely to 

 agree who is fresh from a sight of that lively bird 

 in its splendid summer plumage, or who knows 

 its gentle twittering song. Let us remember that 



1 KdKofilOl K(ti KdKOXpOOl, 00J )'/>' fJLF.l'TOl \tyvpdv l^OVOtV. }JlSt. 



Anim. ix. 17. 



