COINCIDENCE IN THOUGHT 291 



the Eagle yelps like a little dog, and the Bittern 

 bellows like a bull. 



Resemblances to mechanical sounds are also 

 curiously common elsewhere than among Night- 

 jars; the Coppersmith Barbet's note is just like 

 a little gong regularly beaten ; and the Naked- 

 throated Bell- bird (Chasmorbynchus nudicollis) 

 of South America has a really magnificent me- 

 tallic clang, like a bar of iron struck with a rod, 

 which, overpowering though it is close at hand, is, 

 I think, at a reasonable distance, the finest bird 

 note I have ever heard. The more celebrated Bell- 

 bird proper (C. niveus), whose note is said to be like 

 a church bell, is nearly related. 



Old legends and fairy-tales are full of allusions to 

 people who could understand the speech of birds, 

 and, quite apart from talking birds which un- 

 doubtedly do at times make their linguistic acquire- 

 ments serve their ends, there seems to me con- 

 siderable possibility of men understanding the 

 notes and gestures of birds at least as well as these 

 do each other. A man and a bird may have the 

 same idea at once ; thus, just before I saw the 

 Song-Thrush above-mentioned catch the minnow, 

 I remember thinking, " I wonder if that bird could 

 catch one of those fish ; " and on the first occasion 

 on which I saw a Peahen take distinct notice of a 

 Peacock's display, gazing attentively at his train, 

 the Peacock and I both had the same idea that the 

 favourable moment had come ; and we were both 

 mistaken, and mistaken twice in quick succession. 



