LEARNING BIRDS' SONGS 67 



years, and by the next time we have entirely forgot- 

 ten. But just a few catch-words, if based on one's 

 own experience, will recall them delightfully. Un- 

 less one has an unusual memory and ear for music, 

 such a practice will be of the greatest value. 



Most of us cannot attempt to set down bird-songs 

 by musical notation. Many songsters do not seem 

 to pay much heed to the intervals of our scale, or 

 their notes are pitched too high for us to judge. Of 

 course the notation would indicate time-values, yet 

 few are trained to think in this way. To the major- 

 ity, representation by some form of words to which 

 the song has an imagined resemblance, at least in time 

 and accent, will serve as a reminder to call up an im- 

 age of the song as it sounded. Certain of these 

 word-" mnemonics " that have been published have 

 become classic and not unhelpful. The scarlet tan- 

 ager is supposed to say " chip-churr," the white- 

 throated sparrow *' peabody, peabody,'' the blue jay 

 " jay, jay," the chewink or towhee " tow-hee," the 

 nuthatches " ank, ank," the quail " bob-white " or 

 *' more-wet," the night heron " quawk." Such words 

 do very well to suggest the note, and many other 

 notes or songs could be similarly suggested. 



Where the songs are more lengthy, one can use 

 repeated syllables, like ** zee-zee," or " che-chee," 

 with other vowel sounds introduced to show pitch or 

 quality, as the vowel " o " for lower pitch, and " a " 

 for harshness. For example we may describe the 

 prairie warbler's song as " zee-zee," etc., about seven 



