186 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:4— Apr., 1915 



Individual variety of song is not due only to the utterance of 

 different phrases. As with human musicians, birds of the same 

 kind, particularly among the better singers, will display different 

 degrees of excellence between mediocrity and mastership. Bird 

 fanciers will not need to have this fact pointed out, especially as 

 regards canaries, though they may not realize to how great an 

 extent the rule holds as to wild birds. I have heard wood thrushes 

 whose songs were very unattractive, consisting of unmelodious 

 themes, out of tune and delivered in tones that lacked beauty. 

 And again, I have heard others whose performances were so 

 superior that the woodland spot that formed the setting for their 

 music became a shrine worthy of pilgrimages on the part of musi- 

 cians. 



But it is not alone the muscial side of one's nature that is stirred 

 by observation and recording of bird songs. Analysis of the 

 material secured yields results that delight the soul of the philoso- 

 pher. For when the student discovers, as he will very soon, that 

 this music, emanating from a different class of beings than our- 

 selves and developing along a separate evolutionary channel, shows 

 goverance by constructive rules that govern our own music, there 

 opens before his gaze a line of research of intense interest and of 

 great value in throwing light upon philosophical problems more or 

 less shrouded in gloom. Philosophers like Spencer, Weissmann, 

 Wallaschek, Fetis, Helmholtz, and Sully have wrestled with ques- 

 tions concerning the nature of music, its origin, and evolution, the 

 nature and origin of the aesthetic sense, and similar problems. The 

 study of bird music clears away many of the difficulties of these 

 questions and brings some degree of order to the chaos of diverse 

 opinion. Thus, to select one example out of many, Herbert 

 Spencer concludes that music found its origin in human speech. 

 But this hypothesis falls to the ground the moment we find our- 

 selves compelled to assume a common origin for the music of man 

 and bird. 



The analyst of bird music will find himself confronted with 

 numerous questions that will pique his interest and stir his ambition. 

 Why should the song sparrow whose song I have mentioned be 

 dominated so strongly by a sense of regular rhythm ? Why should 

 he have developed a sense of tonality that causes him to observe a 

 definite key throughout his song and close with the keynote 5 

 Why should a bobolink I heard at Monroe, Wis., last June, sing a 



