Alpha Book

{32}
People say the nightingale's song is so beautiful; I am ashamed to
own it, but I do not like it. It does not use the diatonic scale.
A bird should either make no attempt to sing in tune, or it should
succeed in doing so. Larks are Wordsworth, and as for canaries, I
would almost sooner hear a pig having its nose ringed, or the
grinding of an axe. Cuckoos are all right; they sing in tune.
Rooks are lovely; they do not pretend to tune. Seagulls again, and
the plaintive creatures that pity themselves on moorlands, as the
plover and the curlew, or the birds that lift up their voices and
cry at eventide when there is an eager air blowing upon the
mountains and the last yellow in the sky is fading--I have no words
with which to praise the music of these people. Or listen to the
chuckling of a string of soft young ducks, as they glide single-
file beside a ditch under a hedgerow, so close together that they
look like some long brown serpent, and say what sound can be more
seductive.
Many years ago I remember thinking that the birds in New Zealand
approached the diatonic scale more nearly than European birds do.
There was one bird, I think it was the New Zealand thrush, but am
not sure, which used to sing thus:-
[At this point in the book a music score is given]
I was always wanting it to go on:-
[At this point in the book a music score is given]
But it never got beyond the first four bars.


Pages:
198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222