204 The Natural History 



LETTER XLIII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



Selborne, Sept. 9, 1778. 

 Dear Sir, 



From the motion of birds, the transition is natural 

 enough to their notes and language, of which I shall say 

 something. Not that I would pretend to understand 

 their language like the vizier who, by the recital of a 

 conversation which passed between two owls, reclaimed a 

 sultan,^ before delighting in conquest and devastation; 

 but I would be thought only to mean that many of the 

 winged tribes have various sounds and voices adapted to 

 express their various passions, wants, and feelings ; such 

 as anger, fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All 

 species are not equally eloquent ; some are copious and 

 fluent as it were in their utterance, while others are con- 

 fined to a few important sounds : no bird, like the fish 

 kind, is quite mute, though some are rather silent. The 

 language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient 

 modes of speech, very elliptical : little is said, but much 

 is meant and understood. 



The notes of the eagle-kind are shrill and piercing ; 

 and about the season of nidification much diversified, as 

 I have been often assured by a curious observer of nature, 

 who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. 

 The notes of our hawks much resemble those of the king 

 of birds. Owls have very expressive notes ; they hoot 

 in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox humanUf 

 and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This 

 note seems to express complacency and rivalry among 

 the males : they use also a quick call and an horrible 

 scream; and can snore and hiss when they mean to 

 menace. Ravens, beside their loud croak, can exert a 

 deep and solemn note that makes the woods to echo; 

 * See Spectator ^ Vol. VII., No. 512. 



