168 BIRDS AND MAN 



a million times. A musical sound, buzzing or 

 clear, at times tremulous, rising or falling at 

 intervals, it would swell and fill the world, then 

 grow faint and die away. This is one of the 

 artificial sounds which, like distant chimes, 

 harmonise with rural scenes. 



Towards evening the children were all at 

 play, their shrill cries and laughter sounding 

 from aU parts of the village. Then, when the 

 sun had set and the landscape grew dim, they 

 would begin to call to one another from all sides 

 in imitation of the wood owl's hoot. During 

 these autumn evenings the children at this spot 

 appeared to drop naturally into the owl's note, 

 just as in spring in aU parts of England they 

 take to mimicking the cuckoo's call. Cliildren 

 are hke birds of a social and loquacious disposi- 

 tion in their fondness for a set call, a penetrative 

 cry or note, by means of which they can converse 

 at long distances. But they have no settled call 

 of their own, no cry as distinctive as that of one 

 of the lower animals. They mimic some natural 

 sound. In the case of the children of these 

 Midland villages it is the wood owl's clear 

 prolonged note ; and in every place where some 



