HESl'ERO.MVS LEUCOI'US. 269 



from him. His song was not a chirp, but a continuous song of mu- 

 sical tone, a kind of to-wit-to-wee-woo-woo-wee-woo, quite varied in 

 pitch." 



The most extended and interesting account that I have seen of a 

 singing Hesperoinys is from the pen of the Rev. Samuel Lockwood. 

 The subject of his sketch was caught in Florida by Philip Ryall, 

 Esq., and was presented to Dr. Lockwood, who named it Hcspic, 

 Its vocal powers were extraordinary, and two of its most frequently 

 repeated performances were termed respectively the IVJicel Song 

 and the Grand Roh\ and were expressed in musical notation by Mr. 

 Ferris C. Lockwood. After describing her ordinary songs in great 

 detail, Dr. Lockwood observes : " A remarkable fact in the above 

 role is the scope of little Hespie's musical powers. Her soft, clear 

 voice falls an octave with all the precision possible ; then at the 

 wind-up, it rises again into a very quick trill on C sharp and D. 



" Though it be at the risk of taxing belief, yet I must in duty record 

 one of Hespie's most remarkable performances. She was gamboling 

 in the large compartment of her cage, in a mood indicating intense 

 animal enjoyment, having woke from a long sleep, and partaken of 

 some favorite food. She burst into a fulness of song very rich in its 

 variety. While running and jumping, she rolled off what I have 

 called her Grand Role, then sitting, she went over it again, ringing 

 out the strangest diversity of changes, by an almost whimsical trans- 

 position of the bars ; then without for an instant stopping the music, 

 she leapt into the wheel, started it revolving at its highest speed, 

 and went through the Wheel Song in exquisite style, giving several 

 repetitions of it. After this she returned to the large compartment, 

 took up again the Grand Role, and put into it some variations of 

 execution which astonished me. One measure I remember was so 

 silvery and soft, that I said to a lady who was listening, that a canary 

 able to execute that would be worth a hundred dollars. I occasionally 

 detected what I am utterly unable to explain, a literal dual sound, very 

 like a boy whistling as he draws a stick along the pickets of a fence. 



