Bird Notes and their Value 



this afternoon. And it is truly excep- 

 tional. Some notes of it are in the very 

 highest pitch to be found among birds 

 or animals. Naturalists who have meas- 

 ured them carefully, declare that they 

 are actually four full tones above those 

 of the Hyla (Pickering's frog), which other- 

 wise hold the record — being uttered ^'in 

 the note E of the fourth octave above the 

 middle C:' 



With us the bird is mostly migratory, 

 nesting, as a rule, in the Pennsylvania 

 mountains and the latitude of middle 

 and northern New England; and while 

 passing through our fields and forests 

 he generally has but this one call which 

 we are now hearing every half minute, 

 or oftener. But now and then even with 

 us, and daily when once he gets to his 

 real home, he launches forth into real 

 music, even though some of it is keyed 

 up to a sort of White Mountain altitude; 

 and because this full song of his has been 

 thought to sound like 



"Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody!" 



[471 



