She cannot, if she tries, make the bird say anything different, for these are the words she was taught to hear in the song, as a child, in Leicestershire. Of course they are uttered with a great deal of emotion in the tone, David being tearfully, almost sobbingly, begged and implored to take two cows; the emphasis is very strong on the two—it is apparently a matter of the utmost consequence that David should not take one, nor three, nor any other number of cows, but just two.
In East Anglia I have been informed that what the bird really and truly says is—
My toe bleeds, Betty.
Many as are the species capable of articulate speech, as we may see by referring to any ornithological work, there is no bird in our woods whose notes more readily lend themselves to this childish fancy than the wood-pigeon, on account of the depth and singularly human quality of its voice. The song is a passionate complaint. One can fancy the human-like feathered creature in her green bower, pleading, upbraiding, lamenting; and, listening, we will find it easy enough to put it all into plain language:
O swear not you love me, for you cannot be true,
O perjured wood-pigeon! Go from me—woo
Some other! Heart-broken I rue
That softness, ah me! when you cooed your false coo.
Soar to your new love—the creature in blue!
Who, who would have thought it of you!
And perhaps you consider her beau—
Oo—tiful! O you are too too cru—
Bid them come shoo—oot me, do, do!
Would I had given my heart to a hoo—
Oo-ting wood-owl, cuckoo, woodcock, hoopoo!
One morning, at a village in Berkshire, I was walking along the road, about twenty-five yards from a cottage, when I heard, as I imagined, the familiar song of the wood-pigeon; but it sounded too close, for the nearest trees were fifty yards distant. Glancing up at the open window of an upper room in the cottage, I made the discovery that my supposed pigeon was a four-year-old child who had recently been chastised by his mother and sent upstairs to do penance. There he sat by the open window, his face in his hands, crying, not as if his heart would break, but seeming to take a mournful pleasure in the rhythmical sound of his own sobs and moans; they had settled into a rising and falling boo-hoo, with regularly recurring long and short notes, agreeable to the ear, and very creditable to the little crier's musical capacity. The incident shows how much the pigeon's plaint resembles some human sounds.
The plain cooing note is so common in this order of birds that it may be regarded as the original and universal pigeon language, out of which the set songs have been developed, with, in most instances, but little change in the quality of the sound. In the multitude of species there are voices clear, resonant, thick, or husky, or guttural, hollow or booming, grating and grunting; but, however much they vary, you can generally detect the pigeon or family sound, which is more or less human-like. In some species the set song has almost superseded the plain single note, which has diminished to a mere murmur; in others, on the contrary, there is no song at all, unless the single unvarying coo can be called a song. In most species in the typical genus Columba the plain coo is quite distinct from the set song, but has at the same time developed into a kind of second song, the note being pleasantly modulated and repeated many times. We find this in the rock-dove: the curious guttural sounds composing its set song, which accompany the love antics of the male, are not musical, while the clear inflected cooing note is agreeable to most ears. It is a pleasing morning sound of the dove-cote; but the note, to be properly appreciated, must be heard in some dimly lighted ocean-cavern in which the bird breeds in its wild state. The long-drawn, oft-repeated musical coo mingles with and is heard above the murmuring and lapping of the water beneath; the hollow chamber retains and prolongs the sound, and makes it more sonorous, and at the same time gives it something of mystery.
Of all the cooing notes of the different species I am acquainted with, that of the stock-dove, a pigeon with no set song, is undoubtedly the most attractive: next in order is that of the wood-pigeon on account of its depth and human-like character. And it is far from monotonous. In this wood in March I have often kept near a pigeon for half an hour at a time hearing it uttering its cooing note, repeated half a dozen or more times, at intervals of three or four minutes; and again and again the note has changed in length and power and modulation. In the profound stillness, on a windless day, of the vast beechen woods, these sonorous notes had a singularly beautiful effect.
After spending a short time in the forest, one might easily get the idea that it is a sanctuary for all the persecuted creatures of the crow family. It is not quite that; the ravens have been destroyed here as in most places; but the other birds of that tribe are so numerous that even the most bloodthirsty keeper might be appalled at the task of destroying them. The clearance would doubtless have been effected if this noble forest had passed, as so nearly happened, out of the hands of the family that have so long possessed it: that calamity was happily averted. Not only are the rooks there in legions, having their rookeries in the park, but, throughout the forest, daws, carrion crows, jays, and magpies are abundant. The jackdaws outnumber all the other species (rooks included) put together; they literally swarm, and their ringing, yelping cries may be heard at all hours of the day in any part of the forest. In March, when they are nesting, their numbers are concentrated in those parts of the wood where the trees, beech and oak, are very old and have hollow trunks. In some places you will find many acres of wood where every tree is hollow and apparently inhabited. Yet there are doubtless some hollow trees into which the daw is not permitted to intrude. The wood-owl is common here, and is presumably well able to hold his castle against all aggressors. If one could but climb into the airy tower, and, sitting invisible, watch the siege and defence and the many strange incidents of the war between these feathered foes! The daw, bold yet cautious, venturing a little way into the dim interior, with shrill threats of ejectment, ruffling his grey pate and peeping down with his small, malicious, serpent-like grey eyes; the owl puffing out his tiger-coloured plumage, and lifting to the light his pale, shield-like face and luminous eyes,—would indeed be a rare spectacle; and then, what hissings, snappings, and beak-clatterings, and shrill, cat-like, and yelping cries! But, although these singular contests go on so near us, a few yards above the surface, Savernake might be in the misty mid-region of Weir, or on the slopes of Mount Yanik, for all the chance we have of witnessing them.