BIRDS AT THEIR BEST 21 



sense. In creating he selects from the infinite 

 variety of sounds whose images exist in his mind, 

 and, rearranging them, produces new effects. 



The difference in the brains, with regard to their 

 sound-storing power, of the accomphshed musician 

 and the ordinary person who does not know one tune 

 from another and has but fleeting impressions of 

 sounds in general, is no doubt enormous ; probably 

 it is as great as that which exists in the logical 

 faculty between a professor of that science in one of 

 the Universities and a native of the Andaman 

 Islands or of Tierra del Fuego. It is, we see, a ques- 

 tion of training : any person with a normal brain 

 who is accustomed to listen appreciatively to certain 

 sounds, natural or artificial, must store his mind 

 with the images of such sounds. And the open-air 

 naturalist, who is keenly interested in the language 

 of birds, and has listened with delight to a great 

 variety of species, should be as rich in such impres- 

 sions as the musician is with regard to musical 

 sounds. Unconsciously he has all his life been 

 training the faculty. 



With regard to the durability of the images, it 

 may be thought by some that, speaking of birds, 

 only those which are revived and restored, so to 

 speak, from time to time by fresh sense-impressions 



