RUSTIC SOUNDS 7 



jar. He has something of antique mystery which 

 I do not find in the nightingale, as he purrs on his 

 only note through the warm night. There is 

 something unknown and primaeval and vaguely 

 threatening in his relentless simplicity. Can it be 

 that I inherit from a stone-age ancestor both the 

 fear and love of the bull-roarer ? 



Another bird that moves one in a very different 

 way is the robin, of whom it is hard to say whether 

 he has more of tears or smiles in his recitative. In 

 comparison to the night-jar he seems like a 

 civilised human soul who has quite modern 

 sorrows, and has half forgotten them in quiet con- 

 tentment with the autumn sunshine. The black- 

 bird has a tinge of the robin's sentiment,' but it is 

 over-borne by the glory of his song as a whole, which 

 is pure gold, like his beak. 



The chaffinch is not an interesting person, 

 and he is so numerous that one soon becomes 

 weary of him and his song. Let us hope that 

 he expresses his real nature in the building of 

 his pretty nest rather than in song.. This must, I 

 think, often happen, and to take an example from 

 human builders, it is not inconceivable that the 

 architect of St. John's College Chapel, Cambridge, 

 may have sung delightfully. But there are limits 

 to one's faith, and personally I cannot imagine the 

 desecrator of Pembroke College in the same injured 

 town of Cambridge practising any art in a way 

 that would please me. 



To return to birds — the greenfinch is a pleasant 

 singer, or perhaps a conversationalist. I am never 

 tired of hearing him repeat the word " Squeese" as 



