154 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



melodists. Tastes differ ; that is a point on which 

 we are all agreed, and every one of us, even the 

 humblest, is permitted to have his own prefer- 

 ences. Still, after re-reading Wordsworth's lines 

 to "The Green Linnet," it is curious, to say the 

 least of it, to turn to some prosewriter an 

 authority on birds, perhaps to find that this 

 species, whose music so charmed the poet, has 

 for its song a monotonous croak, which it repeats 

 at short intervals for hours without the slightest 

 variation a dismal sound which harmonizes with 

 no other sound in nature, and suggests nothing 

 but heat and weariness, and is of all natural 

 sounds the most irritating. To this writer, then 

 and there are others to keep him in counte- 

 nance the greenfinch as a vocalist ranks lower 

 than the lowest. One can only wonder (and 

 smile) at such extreme divergences. To my mind 

 all natural sounds have, in some measure an ex- 

 hilarating effect, and I cannot get rid of the 

 notion that so it should be with every one of us; 

 and when some particular sound, or series of 

 sounds, that has more than this common char- 

 acter, and is distinctly pleasing, is spoken of as 

 nothing but disagreeable, irritating, and the rest 



