sounds, over there, have affected the bird voices, is a question.
Certain it is that their birds are much more domestic than ours, and
certain it is that all purely wild sounds are plaintive and elusive.
Even of the bark of the fox, the cry of the panther, the voice of the
coon, or the call and clang of wild geese and ducks, or the war-cry of
savage tribes, is this true; but not true in the same sense of
domesticated or semi-domesticated animals and fowls. How different the
voice of the common duck or goose from that of the wild species, or of
the tame dove from that of the turtle of the fields and groves! Where
could the English house sparrow have acquired that unmusical voice but
amid the sounds of hoofs and wheels, and the discords of the street?
And the ordinary notes and calls of so many of the British birds,
according to their biographers, are harsh and disagreeable; even the
nightingale has an ugly, guttural "chuck." The missel-thrush has a
harsh scream; the jay a note like "wrack," "wrack;" the fieldfare a
rasping chatter; the blackbird, which is our robin cut in ebony, will
sometimes crow like a cock and cackle like a hen; the flocks of
starlings make a noise like a steam saw-mill; the white-throat has a
disagreeable note; the swift a discordant scream; and the bunting a
harsh song. Among our song-birds, on the contrary, it is rare to hear a
harsh or displeasing voice. Even their notes of anger and alarm are
more or less soft.

I would not imply that our birds are the better songsters, but that
their songs, if briefer and feebler, are also more wild and plaintive,
--in fact, that they are softer-voiced. The British birds, as I have
stated, are more domestic than ours; a much larger number build about
houses and towers and outbuildings. The titmouse with us is exclusively
a wood-bird; but in Britain three or four species of them resort more
or less to buildings in winter. Their redstart also builds under the