TFIE MUSIC OF BIRD-SONG 233 



centuries before the Greeks, from whom it had 

 erroneously been supposed we borrowed it." 



Mr. Hughes informs me that a parrot in his 

 possession learned to whistle the four notes of the 

 common chord : 



and that a starling on the house picked up the 

 strain and sang it with exactly the accent of the 

 parrot, which was often placed out of doors. That 

 birds should repeat a particular phrase in the same 

 successive intervals of pitch is no more strange than 

 that people should do the same thing. Hawkers 

 and railway men are particularly liable to exhibit 

 this tendency. Mutual aid, though so often advan- 

 tageously employed by birds for the detection of 

 danger, is never otherwise exercised, except in 

 domestic incidents ; consequently, birds' cries are 

 largely restricted to the purposes of call- notes and 

 danger-cries, and do not require the elaboration 

 necessary in more highly developed social con- 

 ditions. 



In making my records I have paid no attention 

 to actual pitch — I believe that this has no scientific 

 value — but all the purpose of my records is to suggest 

 intervals between notes sung by birds. In every 



