The Field Finch Does Not Twitter Or Chirp And Has No Break Or Sudden
Change In His Song, Which Is
Composed of a series of long-drawn notes,
the first somewhat throaty but growing clearer and brighter towards
the end,
So that when thousands sing together it is as if they sang in
perfect unison, the effect on the hearing being like that on the sight
of flowing water or of rain when the multitudinous falling drops
appear as silvery-grey lines on the vision. It is an exceedingly
beautiful effect, and so far as I know unique among birds that have
the habit of singing in large companies.
I remember that we had a carpenter in those days, an Englishman named
John, a native of Cumberland, who used to make us laugh at his slow
heavy way when, after asking him some simple question, we had to wait
until he put down his tools and stared at us for about twenty seconds
before replying. One of my elder brothers had dubbed him the
"Cumberland boor." I remember one day on going to listen to the choir
of finches in the blossoming orchard, I was surprised to see John
standing near the trees doing nothing, and as I came up to him he
turned towards me with a look which astonished me on his dull old
face - that look which perhaps one of my readers has by chance seen on
the face of a religious mystic in a moment of exaltation.
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