(21)

(22)

(23)

Of parrots he had curious choice,

Carefully bred to make a noise.—Ramsay: The Parrot.

Though but the parrot of a poet's thoughts.-Dryden: Juvenal.

Camest thou from India, Popinjay, and why?
-To make thy children open ear and eye,

Gaze on my plumage, wonder at my talk,
And think it shame I was not taught to walk.

-Montgomery: Bids.

(24)

Hands all sinewy, like a parrot's claws.

-Mackay: Doom and Confession.

CHAFFINCH.

(1)

The merry chaffinch.—Mackay: Mary Howitt.

(3)

Spare your idle words,

I'm the perpetuum mobile of birds;

My days are running, rippling, twittering streams;
When fast asleep, I'm broad awake in dreams.

-Montgomery: Birds.

In Scotland's realm forlorn and bare,

The history chanced of late,—

This history of a wedded pair,
A chaffinch and his mate.

The spring drew near, each felt a breast

With genial instinct filled;

They paired, and would have built a nest,
But found not where to build.

But such a tree! 'twas shaven deal,
The tree they call a mast,

And had a hollow with a wheel

Through which the tackle passed.

Within that cavity aloft,

Their roofless homes they fix,

Form'd with materials neat and soft,

Bents, wool, and feathers mixed.

(4)

Four ivory eggs soon pave its floor,
With russet specks, bedight:
The vessel weighs, forsakes the shore,
And lessens to the sight.

The mother bird is gone to sea,

As she had changed her kind;
But goes the male? far wiser, he
Is doubtless left behind,

No! soon as from the shore he saw

The winged mansion move,

He flew to reach it by a law
Of never-failing love.

Then perching at his consort's side,
Was briskly borne along,

The billows and the blast defied,
And cheered her with a song.

Hail, honoured land! a desert where
Not even birds can hide,

Yet parent of this loving pair,
Whom nothing can divide.

And ye who, rather than resign
Your matrimonial plan,

Were not afraid to plough the brine

In company with man;

Be it your fortune, year by year,

The same resource to prove,

And may ye sometimes, landing here,

Instruct us how to love.-Cowper: A Tale.

Quick, though wet, the wing

Gains the first branches of some neighbouring tree.

The ruffling plumes are shook, the pens are trimmed,
And full and clear the sprightly ditty rings,
Cheering the brooding dam: she sits conceal'd
Within the nest deep-hollowed, well disguised
With lichens grey, and mosses' gradual blent,
As if it were a knurle in the bough.
At such a still and sultry hour as this,

When not a strain is heard through all the woods,
I've seen the shilfa light from off his perch,
And hop into a shallow of the stream,

Then, half afraid, flit to the shore, then in

Again alight, and dip his rosy breast,

And fluttering wings, while dew-like globules coursed

The plumage of his brown-empurpled back.

-Grahame: Birds of Scotland.

CHOUGH.

The only poets who refer to the chough call it "ominous and "obscene," giving the reader the idea that they did not like to have much to do with it. Yet, strangely enough, both fable and superstition are very kind to the chough. In Cornwall, for instance, they transfer the legend of the raven-that King Arthur's spirit entered that bird after death-to its red-legged kinsman.

"For mark yon bird of sable wing,
Talons and beak all red as blood;

The spirit of the long-lost king

Passed in that shape from Camlan's flood.
And still, when loudliest howls the storm,

And darkliest lowers his native sky,

The king's fierce soul is in that form,

The warrior-spirit threatens nigh."

There is surely something of dignity in this tradition that makes the poets' calumniation of the "russet-pated chough" seem out of sympathy with popular sentiment. In fable, again, the only reference to the bird is to its credit, where the peacock, disappointed with its own terminations, suggests to the chough that they should exchange legs; but the chough prefers remaining as it is rather than fly in the face of Nature by "swopping" its red stockings for some of the gaiety of the Bird of Juno. In the world of Nature,

and outside the verses of the bards, the chough is a delightful bird, and its appearance, demeanour, flight, and habits are all alike prepossessing; while its admirable strength of character, courage, and fidelity in attachment, commend it to an even larger measure of regard.

May on our bride-house perch and sing.

-Beaumont and Fletcher: Bridal Song.

COCKS AND HENS.

"Tame villatic fowl" (Milton, Sampson Agonistes); "Poor domestic poultry" (Dryden, Hind and Panther); "The feathered tribe domestic" (Cowper, Winter Morning Walk); "The household fowl" (Thomson, Summer); "The various poultry of mixed household kind" (Thomson, Spring).

Chanticleer! How the bards delight in "the princely bird," "noblest of the feathered kind," who, "single in his domain," "lifts shrill his lofty clarion" "to proclaim the crimson dawn ;" who "amidst his harem sleeps in unsuspecting pomp," or, "wakeful," "counts the night-watches to his feathered dames," and as "the shepherd's clock" "his matin rings," "with startling summons," "at peep of 1 Dryden translates the same lines thus :

Owls, ravens, all ill omens of the night,

Here build their nests and hither winged their flight.

day"—" a cottage-rousing craw," that "with lively din scatters the rear of darkness thin," and then, "fearless," "to the stack or the barn-door stoutly struts his dames before," "flirting empty chaff about." Indeed, it is not only pleasing but even a little pathetic to remark the gratitude of the poets to "the various poultry," "of mixed domestic kind,” for their general and very varied utility in verse. "The tame villatic fowl" thus becomes a very widow's-cruse of comfort to the unprovided bard, for they are inexhaustible in similes and illustrations, conceits and texts. Besides, there is so much in the manners and customs and demeanour of "the feathered tribe domestic," that prompts to cheeriness in style, a hearty homely vigour of language-quaint and sudden turns of thought, lively sallies of humour, bright alternations from grave to gay and from gay to grave again, unexpected flights of imagination-that the poet, whether courtier, philosopher, or satirist, may find an infinity of material "within the palings, where the household fowls convene." What a diversity of romance gathers round these birds in the fables of the poets, and what monstrous fun Chaucer, Dryden, Fenton, and others extract from Chanticleer and Partlet! There are those, of course, who decry the bird of Esculapius, of Minerva, and of Mars, but the majority in its favour is overwhelming. What an engaging robustness does it attain in Milton and in Shakespeare !

"The cock that is the trumpet to the Morn,

And doth with lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the God of Day,"

arrives at considerable dignity; while in Cowper he reaches the highest rung—

"The noblest of the feathered kind."

Now, as curious in itself and certainly not without a significance that "elegantly advantages my text," it is worth