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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 199 
the vizier; who by the recital of a conversation which passed 
between two owls, reclaimed a sultan, before delighting in 
conquest and devastation;* but I would be thought only to 
mean that many of the winged tribes have various sounds and 
voices adapted to express their various passions, wants, and 
feelings ; such as anger, fear, Jove, hatred, hunger, and the like. 
All species are not equally eloquent ; some are copious and 
fluent as it were in their utterance, while others are confined 
to a few important sounds: no bird, like the fish kind, is quite 
mute, though some are rather silent. The language of birds 
is very ancient, and, like other ancient modes of speech, 
very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and 
understood. 
The notes of the eagle kind are shrill and piercing ; and 
about the season of nidification much diversified, as I have 
been often assured by a curious observer of Nature who long 
resided at Gibraltar where eagles abound. ‘The notes of our 
hawks much resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have 
very expressive notes ; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much 
resembling the vox humana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a 
musical key. This note seems to express complacency and 
rivalry among the males; they use also a quick call and a 
horrible scream ; and can snore and hiss when they mean to 
menace. Ravens, besides their loud croak, can exert a deep 
and solemn note that makes the woods to echo; the amorous 
sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous ; rooks, in the breed- 
ing season, attempt sometimes in the gaiety of their hearts to 
sing, but with no great success; the parrot kind have many 
modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn 
human sounds; doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, 
and are emblems of despairing lovers ; the woodpecker sets up 
a sort of loud and hearty laugh ; the fern-owl, or goatsucker, 
- 1 See Spectator, vol. VII, no. 512. 
2 The brown owl hoots ; the white owl screams. — W. 
