A DORSET DIARY 145 



Witchell suggests ingeniously that it has been want of 

 leisure which has prevented the development of song 

 among tropical species — leisure being indispensable to 

 varied singing and temperate species having fewer 

 natural enemies. It seems a little fanciful, for tropical 

 species have plenty of time to be absorbed in nuptial 

 dance, and hawks are of world-wide distribution. Bright 

 plumage is the song of the tropical bird. At any rate 

 the alarm cry has remained less differentiated than the 

 call-note from which, first by repetition (as occurs in 

 simpler songs) and then by changes of pitch, tone, 

 pause, etc., song as we know it, has been evolved. So 

 to listen first to the call-note and then the song of the 

 nightingale is a shorthand of evolution. The world 

 did not begin with the roseate spoonbill and the bird 

 of paradise, nor the thrush's maternal devotion, nor 

 the symmetry of the tiger burning bright in the forests 

 of the night, nor the swiftness of the hare nor the 

 curves of the antelope. They have been achieved in 

 their perfection by the enthusiasm and industry of 

 countless experiments, by elaboration from the dust of 

 substance, by fugues wrung out of croaks, wings out 

 of scales, beating hearts, warm blood and softest down 

 out of gelatine, even as we have conjured the Dryad 

 of flame out of petrified timber. 



Green woodpeckers are called " yaffles " in Dorset, 

 but their fine old name of " yappingale " is lost with 

 the wellnigh vanished Dorset dialect. For the Dorset 

 folk cannot understand their own dialect poet, William 

 Barnes, as I have repeatedly proved. Other names, 

 now vanished, for the green woodpecker were " rain- 

 bird," " hewel " (hewhole — Andrew Marvell) and " wood- 

 wale." The latter occurs in Chaucer's translation of 

 the " Roman de la Rose," and both original and version 

 are so beautiful that I am tempted to give them both : — 



n etoit tout couvert d'oisiaulx 

 De Tossignols et de papagaux 

 De calendre et de mesangel. 

 n semblait que ce fut une angel 

 Qui fuz tout droit venuz du ciel. 



10 



