EARLY SPRING IN SAVERNAKE FOREST 221 



upper room in the cottage, I made the discovery 

 that my supposed pigeon was a four -year -old 

 child who had recently been chastised by his 

 mother and sent upstairs to do penance. There 

 he sat by the open window, his face in his hands, 

 crying, not as if his heart would break, but 

 seeming to take a mournful pleasure in the 

 rhythmical sound of his own sobs and moans ; 

 they had settled into a rising and falhng boo-hoo, 

 with regularly recurring long and short notes, 

 agreeable to the ear, and very creditable to the 

 little crier's musical capacity. The incident 

 shows how much the pigeon's plaint resembles 

 some human sounds. 



The plain cooing note is so common in this 

 order of birds that it may be regarded as the 

 original and universal pigeon language, out of 

 which the set songs have been developed, with, 

 in most instances, but little change in the quality 

 of the sound. In the multitude of species there 

 are voices clear, resonant, thick, or husky, or 

 guttural, hollow or booming, grating and grunt- 

 ing ; but, however much they vary, you can 

 generally detect the pigeon or family sound, 

 which is more or less human -Uke. In some 



