APPENDIX. 115 



Newness of the Field. — Contin. 



Ornithologen Gesellschaft), referring to the notations of 

 Beckler (see Index, Beckler, D. H.), speaks with more 

 reserve. In a note dated December, 1890, he supports, 

 though somewhat indirectly, the opinion of our author ; 

 namely, that the main body of a bird-song may be fairly 

 represented by the notes of our scale. He would except 

 the performances of the gray nightingale and of our 

 mocking-bird, as Mr. Cheney excepts the performance of 

 the bobolink. Dr. Golz says : — 



" A short time before the publication of Dr. Alfred Brehm's 

 work ' Captive Birds ' (Gefangene Vogel) a treatise by Beckler 

 appeared in the ' Gartenlaube,' published by Keil at Leipsic. 

 In this periodical that traveller and ornithologist attempted 

 to reproduce or to express in notes of our musical scales the 

 song of different birds, principally Indian birds, for instance 

 the ' Shana ' ( Cophychus macrurus) . I then pointed out that 

 composers of high standing and opera-singers who themselves 

 were bird-fanciers had endeavored in vain to render in notes 

 of our musical scales the wonderful succession of tones of your 

 mocking-bird {Turdus polyglottus). This would only be pos- 

 sible with very monotonous songs, — for instance, those of a 

 finch (Fringilla coelehs) or a thrush {Turdus musicus), but not 

 with the complicated strophes of our gray nightingale {Luscinia 

 philomela), which vary from whole tones to halves and from 

 thirds to fifths, — not to speak of those of your world-renowned 

 mocking-bird. Among the latter there are, as a well-known 

 fact, some monotonous and incompetent singers, which having 

 been taken from their nests when very young, had been brought 

 up without hearing the old birds sing. Unschooled singers, 

 however, are for the most part virtuosi, master singers, and are 

 not to be forced into notes of our system." 



