218 BIRDS AND MAN 



all at once, struck by a Adolent gust, they would 

 be up in thousands, eddying round and round 

 in a dance, and, whirling aloft, scatter and float 

 among the lofty branches to which they were 

 once attached. 



On a calm day, when there was no motion 

 in the sunlit yeUow leaves below and the reddish- 

 purple cloud of twigs above, the sounds of bird- 

 life were the chief attraction of the forest. Of 

 these the cooing of the wood-pigeon gave me the 

 most pleasure. Here some reader may remark 

 that this pigeon's song is a more agreeable sound 

 than its plain cooing note. This, indeed, is 

 perhaps thought little of. In most biographies 

 of the bird it is not even mentioned that he 

 possesses such a note. Nevertheless I prefer 

 it to the song. The song itself — the set melody 

 composed of half-a-dozen inflected notes, repeated 

 three or four times with little or no variation — 

 is occasionally heard in the late winter and early 

 spring, but at this time of the year it is often 

 too husky or croaky to be agreeable. The 

 songster has not yet thrown off" his seasonal 

 cold ; the sound might sometimes proceed from 

 a crow suffering from a catarrh. It improves 



