aesthetic feelings in man more than any species I am acquainted with.
Voice is one of its strong points, as one might readily infer from the
name: nevertheless the name is not an appropriate one, for though the
bird certainly does scream, and that louder than the peacock, its scream
is only a powerful note of alarm uttered occasionally, while the notes
uttered at intervals in the night, or in the day-time, when it soars
upwards like the lark of some far-off imaginary epoch in the world's
history when all tilings, larks included, were on a gigantic scale, are.
properly speaking, singing notes and in quality utterly unlike screams.
Sometimes when walking across Regent's Park I bear the resounding cries
of the bird confined there attempting to sing; above the concert of
cranes, the screams of eagles and macaws, the howling of dogs and wolves
and the muffled roar of lions, one can hear it all over the park. But
those loud notes only sadden me. Exile and captivity have taken all
joyousness from the noble singer, and a moist climate has made him
hoarse; the long clear strains are no more, and he hurries through his
series of confused shrieks as quickly as possible, as if ashamed of the
performance. A lark singing high up in a sunny sky and a lark singing in
a small cage hanging against a shady wall in a London street produce
very different effects; and the spluttering medley of shrill and harsh
sounds from the street singer scarcely seems to proceed from the same
kind of bird as that matchless melody filling the blue heavens. There is
even a greater difference in the notes of the crested screamer when
heard in Regent's Park and when heard on the pampas, where the bird
soars upwards until its bulky body disappears from sight, and from that
vast elevation pours down a perpetual rain of jubilant sound.

_Screamer_ being a misnomer, I prefer to call the bird by its vernacular
name of _chaja,_ or _chakar_, a more convenient spelling.