SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS 



chaffinch is especially prized, any singer of ex- 

 ceptional sweetness is carefully marked down by 

 bird-catchers who will make long expeditions in 

 order to secure it. But these differences are 

 those of one artist as compared with another. 

 The dialect note is a thing apart. There is 

 reason to think that a south-country bird, whilst 

 preserving the phrases typical of its kind, develops 

 an accent of its own that differs from that of a 

 member of the same species in the north. The 

 songs and call-notes of birds in Norway have 

 often seemed to us to have a quality of their own 

 that sets them a little apart from their kin in 

 England. We have at times listened to a chaf- 

 finch in Norway, and although the phrases were 

 quite familiar the intonation at first led us to 

 doubt its identity. Mr. E. P. Butterfield, a 

 very careful observer, confirms this opinion. 

 " Many birds, he wrote, have what may be termed 

 dialect notes in their song. This I have often 

 noticed in the song of the chaffinch in various 

 parts of Britain." Perhaps the peculiarity may 

 apply especially to the chaffinch. 



Abnormal Song. 



In some exceptional cases birds depart from the 

 song of their race altogether. We have noted 

 several cases of the kind, and Mr. Butterfield 

 supplies the following instance. A game-keeper 

 reported to him that he had heard a very re- 

 markable song of a bird he could not identify. 

 When the bird was located it turned out to be a 

 mistle-t brush. Its song consisted of merely 

 two or three notes that it kept repeating in a 

 sepulchral strain, which we may conclude gave 

 little or no clue to its identity. 



A correspondent writing from Campden Hill 

 Square, gave a somewhat similar account : — 

 " Throughout February," he wrote, " a chaffinch 



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