THE ORNITHOLOGY OF TENNYSON.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Your contributor in the Spectator of August 18th is, of course, aware that Tennyson substituted " fly " for " bee" in the verse :— "The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee."
Another less noticed correction is perhaps even a better• example of his desire for accuracy. In an early poem he wrote of the " sudden laughters of the jay." Now laughter is hardly the word to use of the harsh squawk in which the jay vents his anger at being disturbed over his acorns or his more questionable proceedings. And so the poet saw, for he altered it to the less soft but more descriptive " scritches," a word borrowed from our local dialect. More accurately he makes the forest-knight Tristram refer to the " laughter of the red-headed woodpecker, again, however, using a local word :— "I am woodman of the woods And hear the garnet-headed gaffingale Mock them."
Eversley, Poole.
Previous page
