EDITOR'S PREFACE. yii 



character of the tones it set ringing in his mind. Music 

 was the standard. In addition to this, and hardly less 

 important, his heart and brain were full of youth and 

 enthusiasm; he stood to the last before both man and 

 Nature, decided in his likes and dislikes, hearty in his 

 love and hatred, eager and joyous — and wayward — as a 

 boy. " My threescore and ten are numbered," he writes 

 on his birthday, " but for the life of me I can't feel old, 

 can't think old." Such, in a word, was the reporter of 

 the " Wood Notes Wild ; " and the only justification of his 

 work that he cared to make was characteristically simple, 

 — "A little bird told me so." 



As before stated, it has been sought, by means of an 

 appendix, to supplement the record of the birds the songs 

 of which are presented, and to point to such information 

 on the general subject of bird music as might prove acces- 

 sible, — the matter being drawn from both scientific and 

 popular sources. Few supplementary notations of bird 

 songs appear, for the reason that they are not easy to 

 find. Indeed, two hundred letters sent to ornithologists 

 and librarians of this country and of Europe, in addition 

 to no little personal research, indicate that there are not 

 many such notations in existence. Dr. F. Granauer, of 

 K. K. Universitats-Bihliothek, Vienna, writes that none 

 are to be found in that library either in books or peri- 

 odicals; while Dr. Golz, of Berlin, writes: "What your 

 Audubon, Wilson, and others say with reference to the 

 bird-songs has not been excelled in Germany. What we 

 have is in Brehm's ' Gefangene Vogel.' " Brehm's work 

 contains no notations. 



