‘Another thing I like about them,’ said the Wart, ‘is their Go. They may be thieves and practical jokers, and they do quarrel and bully each other in a squawky way, but they have got the courage to mob their enemies. I should think it takes some courage to mob a hawk, even if there is a pack of you. And even while they are doing it they clown.’
‘They are mobs,’ said Archimedes, loftily. ‘You have said the word.’
‘Well, they are larky mobs, anyway,’ said the Wart, ‘and I like them.’
What is your favourite bird?’ asked Merlyn politely, to keep the peace.
Archimedes thought this over for some time, and then said, ‘Well, it is a large question. It is rather like asking you what is your favourite book. On the whole, however, I think that I must prefer the pigeon.’
‘To eat?’
‘I was leaving that side of it out,’ said the owl in civilized tones. ‘Actually the pigeon is the favourite dish of all raptors, if they are big enough to take her, but I was thinking of nothing but domestic habits.’
‘Describe them.’
‘The pigeon,’ said Archimedes, ‘is a kind of Quaker. She dresses in grey. A dutiful child, a constant lover, and a wise parent, she knows, like all philosophers, that the hand of every man is against her. She has learned throughout the centuries to specialize in escape. No pigeon has ever committed an act of aggression nor turned upon her persecutors: but no bird, likewise, is so skilful in eluding them. She has learned to drop out of a tree on the opposite side to man, and to fly low so that there is a hedge between them. No other bird can estimate a range so well. Vigilant, powdery, odorous and loose-feathered – so that dogs object to taking them in their mouths – armoured against pellets by the padding of these feathers, the pigeons coo to one another with true love, nourish their cunningly hidden children with true solicitude, and flee from the aggressor with true philosophy – a race of peace lovers continually caravanning away from the destructive Indian in covered wagons. They are loving individualists surviving against the forces of massacre only by wisdom in escape.
‘Did you know,’ added Archimedes, ‘that a pair of pigeons always roosts head to tail, so that they can keep a look-out in both directions?’
‘I know our tame pigeons do,’ said the Wart. ‘I suppose the reason why people are always trying to kill them is because they are so greedy. What I like about wood-pigeons is the clap of their wings, and how they soar up and close their wings and sink, during their courting flights, so that they fly rather like woodpeckers.’
‘It is not very like woodpeckers,’ said Merlyn.
‘No, it is not,’ admitted the Wart.
‘And what is your favourite bird?’ asked Archimedes, feeling that his master ought to be allowed a say.
Merlyn put his fingers together like Sherlock Holmes and replied immediately, ‘I prefer the chaffinch. My friend Linnaeus calls him coelebs or bachelor bird. The flocks have the sense to separate during the winter, so that all the males are in one flock and all the females in the other. For the winter months, at any rate, there is perfect peace.’
‘The conversation,’ observed Archimedes, ‘arose out of whether birds could talk.’
‘Another friend of mine,’ said Merlyn immediately, in his most learned voice, ‘maintains, or will maintain, that the question of the language of birds arises out of imitation. Aristotle, you know, also attributes tragedy to imitation.’
Archimedes sighed heavily, and remarked in prophetic tones, ‘You had better get it off your chest.’
‘It is like this,’ said Merlyn. ‘The kestrel drops upon a mouse, and the poor mouse, transfixed with those needle talons, cries out in agony his one squeal of K-e-e-e! Next time the kestrel sees a mouse, his own soul cries out Kee in imitation. Another kestrel, perhaps his mate, comes to that cry, and after a few million years all the kestrels are calling each other with their individual note of Kee-kee-kee.’
‘You can’t make the whole story out of one bird,’ said the Wart.
‘I don’t want to. The hawks scream like their prey. The mallards croak like the frogs they eat, the shrikes also, like these creatures in distress. The blackbirds and thrushes click like the snail-shells they hammer to pieces. The various finches make the noise of cracking seeds and the woodpecker imitates the tapping on wood which he makes to get the insects that he eats.’
‘But all birds don’t give a single note!’
‘No, of course not. The call-note arises out of imitation and then the various bird songs are developed by repeating the call-note and descanting upon it.’
‘I see,’ said Archimedes coldly. ‘And what about me?’
‘Well, you know quite well,’ said Merlyn, ‘that the shrew-mouse you pounce upon squeals out Kweek! That is why the young of your species call Kee-wick.’
‘And the old?’ inquired Archimedes sarcastically.
‘Hooroo, Hooroo,’ cried Merlyn, refusing to be damped. ‘It is obvious, my dear fellow. After their first winter, that is the wind in the hollow trees where they prefer to sleep.’
‘I see,’ said Archimedes, more coolly than ever. ‘This time, we note, it is not a question of prey at all.’
‘Oh, come along,’ replied Merlyn. ‘There are other things besides the things you eat. Even a bird drinks sometimes, for instance, or bathes itself in water. It is the liquid notes of a river that we hear in a robin’s song.’
‘It seems now,’ said Archimedes, ‘that it is no longer a question of what we eat, but also what we drink or hear.’
‘And why not?’
The owl said resignedly, ‘Oh, well.’
‘I think it is an interesting idea,’ said the Wart, to encourage his tutor. ‘But how does a language come out of these imitations?’
‘They repeat them at first,’ said Merlyn, ‘and then they vary them. You don’t seem to realize what a lot of meaning there resides in the tone and the speed of voice. Suppose I were to say, “What a nice day,” just like that. You would answer, “Yes, so it is.” But if I were to say, “What a nice day,” in caressing tones, you might think I was a nice person. But then again, if I were to say, “What a nice day,” quite breathless, you might look about you to see what had put me in a fright. It is like this that the birds have developed their language.’
‘Would you mind telling us,’ said Archimedes, ‘since you know so much about it, how many various things we birds are able to express by altering the tempo and emphasis of the elaborations of our call-notes?’
‘But a large number of things. You can cry Kee-wick in tender accents, if you are in love, or Kee-wick angrily in challenge or in hate: you can cry it on a rising scale as a call-note, if you do not know where your partner is, or to attract their attention away if strangers are straying near your nest: If you go near the old nest in the winter-time you may cry Kee-wick lovingly, a conditioned reflex from the pleasures which you once enjoyed within it, and if I come near to you in a startling way you may cry out Keewick-keewick-keewick, in loud alarm.’
‘When we come to conditioned reflexes,’ remarked Archimedes sourly. ‘I prefer to look for a mouse.’
‘So you may. And when you find it I dare say you will make another sound characteristic of owls, though not often mentioned in books of ornithology. I refer to the sound “Tock” or “Tck” which human beings call a smacking of the lips.’
‘And what sound is that supposed to imitate?’
‘Obviously, the breaking of mousy bones.’
‘You are a cunning master,’ said Archimedes, ‘and as far