VAJ?/A TION IN BIRD- VOICES 147 



miles distant from each other. This difference is 

 more readily remarked in the chaffinch, dunnock, 

 and yellow-hammer than in the more melodious 

 species {Edin. Mag., 1819). The chaffinches, for 

 example, in Normandy were observed to vary from 

 those of Scotland by several notes ; and among the 

 yellow-hammers of Ireland, England, and Holland 

 we detected similar differences. We once heard a 

 dunnock {Accentor modularis) in a garden at Black- 

 heath sing so many additional notes to his common 

 song, that we concluded it was of a different species, 

 till we ascertained by watching the little musician 

 that it was not otherwise distinguished from its 

 less accomplished brethren." In January 1889, at 

 Bournemouth, I heard two dunnocks, not far apart, 

 which sang the same song — a phrase unlike that 

 commonly uttered by dunnocks at Stroud, though of 

 course easily recognised as the song of the same 

 species. A dunnock at Paganhill, near Stroud, 

 repeated, on loth February 1892, the following very 

 curious phrase (presto) : 



I 



zQi 



r 



which I could not have recorded had not the bird 

 persistently uttered it. On 15 th April, at Fro- 



