82 BIRDS AND MAN 



artist : in other words, he looks at nature and 

 all visible things with a purpose, which I am 

 happily without ; and the reflex effect of his 

 purpose is to make nature to him what it can 

 never appear to me— a painted canvas. But 

 this subject, which I have touched on in a single 

 sentence, demands a volume. 



Ruskin wrote of the cathedral daws, " That 

 drift of eddying black points, now closing, now 

 scattering, now setthng suddenly into invisible 

 places among the bosses and flowers, the crowd 

 of restless birds that fill the whole square with 

 that strange clangour of theirs, so harsh and yet 

 so soothing." For it seemed to me that he had 

 seen the birds but had not properly heard them ; 

 or else that to his mind the sound they made 

 was of such small consequence in the effect of 

 the whole scene — so insignificant an element 

 compared with the sight of them — that it was 

 really not worth attending to and describing 

 accurately. 



Possibly, in this particular case, when in 

 speaking of the daws he finished his description 

 by throwing in a few words about their voices, 

 he was thinking less of the impression on his 



