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 



