Page:BirdWatchingSelous.djvu/327

Rh certain well-understood sound conveying a certain idea or ideas—as, first, 'burr,' a particular kind of joyous flight: then, 'burr,' something as joyous as such flight, and so, joy: and lastly, 'burr,' the actual joyous flying, the root, therefore, of the verb 'burr,' to fly joyously, and, so, to fly. Darwin supposes language to owe its origin 'to the imitation and modification of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals and man's own instinctive cries, aided by signs and gestures.' To repeat a certain sound, that had been at first the mere mechanical adjunct of a certain act or state, when one recalled that act or state, would be, as it seems to me, an extremely early—perhaps the earliest—step, passing imperceptibly from feeling into thought, and leading on to imitation. Such speculations may be permitted one, in a dark fir-plantation, surrounded by rooks and waiting for the morning.

"One thing, however, I record as a fact, which appears to me somewhat curious. Though the plantation is continuous, without any break other than the narrow path that runs through its centre, and though it is simply crowded with rooks, every tree holding a great many, yet I notice that an outbreak of sound in any particular part of it does not spread over the whole, as one might have supposed that it would, but dies gradually out, as it radiates from the point where it arose. Thus, there are zones of sound, isolated from each other by intervening areas of silence. Just at this moment, after I have sat, for some time, silent, and all alarm has subsided, there is a great clamorous outburst some little way off! It must have some special cause which I cannot divine, but this