oldys] RECORDING BIRD MUSIC 183 



the water, dip in their bread and then eat. It is always necessary 

 to put in fresh water after they have had a meal. 



A brush pile is an addition as it gives a shelter from cold and cats. 

 With shelter, food and water and a fondness for birds that will not 

 allow irregular feeding, I can promise much pleasure on wintry 

 days. 



Recording Bird Music 



Henry Oldys 



While in recent years there has been a wide-spread awakening 

 of interest in birds, such as the world has never known hitherto, 

 yet the attention of very few of the new army of observers has been 

 directed toward the study of bird music. This is largely due, of 

 course, to the lack of that special musical training which is neces- 

 sary for the pursuit ; but duly allowing for this we yet shall find a 

 large number who are well qualified to pursue such investigations 

 but who, for various reasons, have never applied their faculties to 

 this particular subject. To such persons, to every one who has 

 sufficient musical knowledge and a good enough ear to enable him 

 to write down on the staff any simple melody that he hears, I would 

 heartily recommend the pursuit as one that offers a fascinating 

 and unfailing source of pleasure for those moments not required 

 by the sterner duties of life. 



One of its chief charms is that the student becomes at once an 

 explorer of virgin fields, and of fields that are inexhaustible. The 

 variety of bird songs is practically infinite. Geographical and 

 individual differences so multiply diversities that the recorder of 

 bird music is quickly impressed with the feeling that however 

 assiduously and diligently he employs his time he will be able to 

 co\ T er merely a minute area of the boundless region that stretches 

 before him. Were we even to specialize to the point of noting 

 only the utterances of wood thrushes he would yet have laid out for 

 himself a larger territory than he could cover within the narrow 

 limits of a lifetime. When we consider that there are millions upon 

 millions of wood thrushes, that most of these differ from each other 

 in the phrases they utter, and that each has a more or less extended 

 repertoire of phrases which he combines in various forms, it may be 

 readily understood that there is no visible end to the recording of 

 wood-thrush music. I have myself noted more than eighty differ- 

 ent wood-thrush phrases in the course of my general study of bird 



