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BIRD HARMONIES.
By F. CARRUTHERS GOULD.
[Being abstract of a Lecture delivered before the CM, April 30th, 1887.]
Harmony runs throughout the whole of nature, and it has many
phases. The most palpable to an ordinary observer is that of
colour, and it is one which appeals to all who are not blind physically
or mentally.
But there is another harmony, not so palpable as that of colour,
because more subtle, but none the less existing. It is the harmony
between the animate and the inanimate ; between the mountains
and valleys and streams and ocean, and the little worlds of living
creatures which live, and move, and have their being in this same
universe as ourselves.
I am looking at this subject merely from a sentimental point of
view, and not in the least scientifically. Of course this harmony
may be easily explained in a great measure by assimilation of colour-
ing for protective purposes, or by protective resemblances, and I may
be arguing in a circle; but I ask my readers to pardon me for leaving
the rigid path of technical accuracy and wandering through the more
picturesque windings of fancy. I am treating my subject more
from the point of view of Michelet than of Darwin.
Now amongst the different worlds of living creatures which make
up the animated part of nature, I think there is none more attractive,
more harmonious than the bird world.
Its beauties and varieties of form and colour, and its power of
flight, have from time immemorial given to the bird a peculiar charm
in the eyes of men, who have used it in its varied forms as types of
peace and war, of love and hate, of ambition and daring, and other
things with which man is ever busy.
And so closely and so perfectly do birds harmonize with nature
that the very names of some bring vividly before the mind the
seasons with which they are associated. The nightingale means the
spring and the moon-lit nights in May ; the skylark makes us dream
of summer skies ; the blackbird and the robin recall to our memory
the rustling of autumn leaves and the snows of Christmas.
What wonder is it that we love our little feathered friends ? First
our nursery tales cast a halo of romance about them, as in the old
story of the Babes in the Wood and the Robins. And then in
our schooldays, even in the dry regions of classics, we came upon the