I believe we allow that birds are very highly organized creatures,--next to
man, they say. We, with our weary feet plodding always on the earth, our
heavy arms pinioned close to our sides!--look at this live creature, with
thinnest wing cutting the fine air! We, slow in word, slow in
thought!--look at this quivering flame, kindled by some more passionate
glance of Nature! Next to man? Yes, we might say next above. Had it not
been for that fire we stole one day, that Promethean spark, hidden in the
ashes, kept a-light ever since, it had gone hard with us; Nature might have
kept her pet, her darling, high, high above us,--almost out of roach of our
dull senses.

What is our boasted speech, with its harsh, rude sounds, to their gushing
melody? We learn music, certainly, with much pains and care. The bird
cannot tell if it be A sharp or B flat, but he sings.

Our old friend, the friend of our childhood, Mr. White of Selborne, (who
had attended much to the life and conversation of birds,) says, "Their
language is very elliptical; little is said, and much is meant and
understood." Something like a lady's letter, is it not?

How wise we might grow, if we could only "the bird-language rightly spell"!
In the olden times, we are told, the Caliphs and Viziers always listened to
what the birds said about it, before they undertook any new enterprise. I
have often thought I heard wise old folk discoursing, when a company of
hens were busy on the side-hill, scratching and clucking
together. Perchance some day we shall pick up a leaf of that herb which
shall open our ears to these now inarticulate sounds.

Why may we not (just for this summer) believe in Transmigrations, and find