240 NATURALHISTORY j 
I 
LETTER XLIIL 
TO THE SAME. 
DEAR SIR, Sei.eorne, Sept. 9, i77g. 
From the motion of birds, the tranfition is natural enough to 
their notes and language, of which I fhall fay fomething. Not 
that I would pretend to underftand their language like the vizier; 
who, by the recital of a converfation which paffed between two 
owls, reclaimed a fulran, before delighting in conqueft and de- 
vaftatlon ; but I would be thought only to mean that many of 
the winded tribes have various founds and voices adapted to ex- 
prefs their various pafiions, wants, and feehngs ; fuch as anger, 
fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All fpecies are not 
equally eloquent ; fome are copious and fluent as it were in 
their utterance, while others are confined to a few important 
founds : no bird, like the fifla kind, is quite mute, though fome 
are rather filent. The language of birds is very ancient, and, like 
other ancient modes of fpeech, very elliptical; little is faid, but 
much is meant and underftood. 
The notes of the eagle-kind are flirill and piercing ; and about 
the feafon of nidification m.uch diverfified, as I have been often 
affured by a curious obferver of Nature, who long refided at 
Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much 
refemble thofe of the king of birds. Owls have very exprelTive 
notes ; they hoot in a fine vocal found, much refembling the vox 
See Speaator, Vol. VII, N°. 512. 
humana 
