154 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



there is a discussion of the elaboration of song from 

 the primitive call-note.' The actual notes of a bird's 

 song are no doubt an ancestral inheritance, but the 

 quality of their composition depends upon the educa- 

 bility of the young birds, upon their power of profiting 

 by the lessons of their parents. If the power of song 

 was germinally transmitted from parent to offspring as 

 completely as more automatic functions (the feeding 

 specialization of a snipe or woodcock, for instance), 

 we should not find, as we certainly do, great differences 

 in musical quality between individuals of the same 

 species. The call-note, on the other hand, is vastly 

 more uniform, far less susceptible to individual modifi- 

 cation, and a much truer indication of family relation- 

 ships and common descent from general types. The 

 alarm, recognition and call-notes are a racial entail ; 

 the song individual and acquired through filial imitation 

 in successive generations. 



All evolution has been won out of some kind of 

 individual effort and free will, and every nestling must 

 learn the melody that the character of its parents has 

 wrested for it out of the uniform backward of time. 

 So it is in art, and every fine poem, statue and symphony 

 repeats in little the story of evolution, while anticipating 

 its climax. The difference between a bird's call-note 

 and its song is the same difference as that between writing 

 and literature. 



I am wrong about the colour of Dorset. On a fine 

 day like this the bare shoulders of land are suffused, 

 or rather blushed, with a peculiar, ethereal, delicate 

 pearl. Pink, blue and lavender are all in pearl, but 

 the greens and browns seem to distil into this gauze- 

 like lustre as well. If one stands upon one of these 

 shoulders and looks across the chequered fields to the 

 low-lying purple ranges of hills beyond and other ame- 

 thystine ranges beyond them, all in half-tones, then 

 the true inwardness of this part of Dorset is rather 

 intensified than lost. For one views the glories of its 

 setting, as a man putting his hand to some close detail 

 of craftsmanship will see it give sudden form to the 



• See above. 



