Aubrey, in his "Natural History of Wilts," quotes the following weather presage from May's "Virgil's Georgics":—
"The seas are ill to sailors evermore
When Cormorants fly crying to the shore."
TALKING BIRDS, ETC.
CERTAIN birds are known to utter strange sounds, the origin of which has much puzzled the ornithologists. The Brown Owl which hoots, is hence called the Screech Owl: a musical friend of Gilbert White tried all the Owls that were his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at a concert pitch, and found they all hooted in B flat; and he subsequently found that neither Owls nor Cuckoos keep to one note. The Whidah Bird, one of the most costly of cage-birds, rattles its tail-feathers with a noise somewhat resembling that made by the rattle-snake. The Chinese Starling, in China called Longuoy, in captivity is very teachable, imitating words, and even whistling tunes: we all remember Sterne's Starling. The Piping Crow, to be seen in troops in the Blue Mountains, is named from its ready mimicry of other birds: its imitation of the chucking and cackling of a hen and the crowing of a cock, as well as its whistling of tunes, are described as very perfect: its native note is said to be a loud whistle. The Blue Jay turns his imitative faculty to treacherous account: he so closely imitates the St. Domingo Falcon as to deceive even those acquainted with both birds; and the Falcon no sooner appears in their neighbourhood than the jays swarm around him and insult him with their imitative cries; for which they frequently fall victims to his appetite. The Bullfinch, according to Blumenbach, learns to whistle tunes, to sing in parts, and even to pronounce words. The note of the Crowned Crane has been compared by Buffon to the hoarseness of a trumpet; it also clucks like a hen. Mr. Wallace, in his "Travels on the Amazon," saw a bird about the size and colour of the Raven, which uttered a loud, hoarse cry, like some deep musical instrument, whence its Indian name, Ueramioube, Trumpet Bird: it inhabits the flooded islands of the Rio Negro and the Solimoes, never appearing on the mainland. [12] The only sound produced by Storks is by snapping their bills. The Night Heron is called the Qua Bird; from its note Qua.
The Bittern, the English provincial names of which are the Mire-drum, Bull of the Bog, &c., is so called for the bellowing or drumming noise or booming for which the bird is so famous. This deep note of the "hollow-sounding Bittern" is exerted on the ground at the breeding season, about February or March. As the day declines he leaves his haunt, and, rising spirally, soars to a great height in the twilight. Willughby says that it performs this last-mentioned feat in the autumn, "making a singular kind of noise, nothing like to lowing." Bewick says that it soars as above described when it changes its haunts. Ordinarily it flies heavily, like the Heron, uttering from time to time a resounding cry, not bellowing; and then Willughby, who well describes the bellowing noise of the breeding season, supposes it to be the Night Raven, at whose "deadly voice" the superstitious wayfarer of the night turned pale and trembled. "This, without doubt," writes Willughby, "is that bird our common people call the Night Raven, and have such a dread of, imagining its cry portends no less than their death or the death of some of their near relations; for it flies in the night, answers their description of being like a flagging collar, and hath such a kind of hooping cry as they talk of." Others, with some reason, consider the Qua Bird already mentioned (which utters a loud and most disagreeable noise when on the wing, conveying the idea of the agonies of a person attempting to vomit) to be the true Night Raven. The Bittern was well known to the ancients, and Aristotle mentions the fable of its origin from staves metamorphosed into birds. The long claw of the hind toe is much prized as a toothpick, and in the olden times it was thought to have the property of preserving the teeth.
The Greater-billed Butcher Bird, from New Holland, has extraordinary powers of voice: it is trained for catching small birds, and it is said to imitate the notes of some other birds by way of decoying them to their destruction.