78 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
finger-tip over metal strings as fine as gossamer 
threads — describe it how you will, you cannot 
describe it; then the long, low, inflected scream, 
like a lark's throat-note drawn out and inflected; 
little chirps and chirruping exclamations and 
remarks, and a soft warbled note three or four 
times repeated ; and again the trill, trill answering 
trill in difi"erent keys ; and again the mimic scream 
as if some unsubstantial being, fairy or wood- 
nymph, had screamed somewhere in her green 
hiding-place. 
In London one frequently hears, especially in 
the spring, half a dozen sparrows just met together 
in a garden tree, or among the ivy on a wall, burst 
out suddenly into a confused rapturous chorus of 
chirruping sounds, mingled with others of a finer 
quality, liquid and ringing. At such times one is 
vexed to think that there are writers on birds who 
invariably speak of the sparrow as a tuneless 
creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing more. It 
strikes one that such writers either wilfully abuse 
or are ignorant of the right meaning of words, so 
wild and glad in character are these concerts of 
town sparrows, and so refreshing to the tired and 
noise-vexed brain ! But now, when I listened to 
the greenfinches in the village elms and hedge- 
rows, if by chance a few sparrows burst out in 
loud gratulatory notes, the sounds they emitted 
