ioo MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



together like a shower of stones into the shrubberies, 

 a shy bird like the bullfinch, or any rare and lonely 

 stranger, will remain with the friendly robin, a little 

 unnerved, perhaps, by the sudden flurry around them, 

 but waiting to use their own judgment of the circum- 

 stances. 



BIRD LANGUAGE AND ITS USES. 



In the alarm notes and calls of gregarious birds 

 we hear, in fact, the beginning of " language " among 

 birds ; and from it we can see how man owes his gift 

 of speech, in the first instance, to his communal habits. 

 And this " language " of birds is useful to us, too, as 

 in the case of man, in determining their relationships 

 and investigating their ancient history. From words 

 of daily use we can discover the human family to 

 which any given race of human beings belongs, and 

 we can trace from them also many of the earlier habits 

 of the race. So with birds. When the blackbird 

 flies chattering out of the hedge he reminds us at 

 once of the chattering cry with which fieldfares, flying 

 from field to field, keep their trailing ranks together. 

 Even the very young blackbird, who cocks his tail 

 and chatters the first time he leaves the nest, after 

 the manner of the fieldfare as well as of his own 

 father, tells the same story, namely, that in ages long 

 ago the fieldfare and the blackbird, as well as the 

 thrushes and the robin, who also cock their tails and 

 chatter upon occasion, were descended from a common 

 ancestor, who cocked his tail, and chattered as an 

 alarm note, because he was a gregarious bird. We 

 also know that this common ancestor wore a suit of 



