THE LIFE OF BIRDS 149 
the Crows refused to follow, though already 
higher than I ever saw Crows before, dim against 
the fleecy sky ; then the Hawk flew northward, 
but soon after he sailed over us once again, 
with loud, scornful chzvr, and they only cawed, 
and left him undisturbed. 
When we hear the tumult of music from 
these various artists of the air, it seems as if 
the symphony never could be analyzed into its 
different instruments. But with time and pa- 
tience it is not so difficult; nor can we really 
enjoy the performance so long as it is only a con- 
fused chorus to our ears. It is not merely the 
highest form of animal language, but in strict- 
ness of etymology the only form, if it be true, 
as is claimed, that no other animal employs its 
tongue, /zgua, in producing sound. In the 
Middle Ages, the song of birds was called their 
Latin, as was any other foreign dialect. It was 
the old German superstition, that any one who 
should eat the heart of a bird would thenceforth 
comprehend its language; and one modern 
philologist of the same nation (Masius declares) 
has so far studied the sounds produced by do- 
mestic fowls as to announce a Goose-Lexicon. 
Dupont de Nemours asserted that he under- 
stood eleven words of the Pigeon language, the 
same number of that of Fowls, fourteen of the 
Cat tongue, twenty-two of that of Cattle, thirty 
