The Minstrels of the Summer. 21 



parallels to the hyrtms and ballads we sing ourselves. Every 

 observer of birds niust be familiar with, their several call-notes 

 to each other, their expressions of joy and alarm, from the 

 blackbird's " chuck " when in possession of a snail, and " chirrall, 

 chirrall," when suddenly alarmed, to the harsh " chink " of the 

 robin when about to fight- As Plato called flowers the joy of 

 plants, we must perhaps be content with equal vagueness of 

 description in designating song the joy of birds. When the 

 heart is merry we are wont to sing, and while the woods and 

 gardens resound with a thousand melodious lays we can dis- 

 cover therein a new cause for thankfulness to the Father of all 

 things, not only that we are made happy thereby, but that all 

 the world brims with joy and speaks aloud its ecstasy in the 

 voices of these timid, fluttering creatures. 



The language of animals is not a new theme. Sir William 

 Jones tells of a lutanist who, in a grove at Schiraz, competed 

 with the nightingales who gathered round him on the branches, 

 and in then endeavours to outdo the musician fell on the 

 ground at his feet exhausted. In the thirty -fifth number of the 

 Quarterly JRevieiv is an account of a man who had learnt the 

 language of birds, and knew by the call of the mother where 

 the nest was, how old the young were, and how many she had 

 reared in the nest. But this is nothing to the story of Por- 

 phyry, in his delightfully gossiping book on abstinence. He 

 says, vindicating the possession of reason by animals, " that 

 which is vocally expressed by the tongue is reason, in whatever 

 manner it be expressed, whether in a barbarous, or a Grecian, 

 or canine, or a bovine mode ; all other animals that are vocal 

 participate of it/' * * * * " This, for instance, is related 

 of Melampus and Tyanseus, and others of the like kind, that 

 they understood the speech of animals. It is related of Apol- 

 lonius Tyanseus that once, when he was with his associates, 

 a swallow happening to be present, and twittering, he said 

 that the swallow indicated to other birds that an ass laden 

 with corn had fallen down before the city, and that in conse- 

 quence of the fall to the ass the corn was spread about on 

 the ground. An associate of mine informed me that he once 

 had a boy for a servant who understood the meaning of all 

 kinds of birds, and who said that all of them were prophetic." 

 (De Abstinentia ah esu animalium, lib. iii. 3.) 



Thales and Tiresias are both represented to have under- 

 stood the language of birds ; and Plato, in his picture of the 

 golden age, supposes men to have understood the language of 

 birds and beasts. Cicero says the Arabians cultivated this 

 knowledge ; and Sigard, in the Scadinavian Mythology, ac- 

 quires the gift by eating the flesh of a serpent. 



It is an old dispute, of which a book-lover never tires, 



