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2nd Edition ; “‘Our Summer Migrants,” by Harting; Yarrell’s 
“ British Birds,” 1st and 4th Editions ; Adam White’s “Popular 
History of Birds,” “ Domestic Habits of Birds,”’ by the Society 
for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; White’s “Selborne” ; 
Knapp’s “Journal of a Naturalist”; Layard’s “Birds of 
South Africa”; Wilson and Bonaparte’s “ American Ornithol- 
ogy ” ; Gould’s *‘ Handbook of the Birds of Australia”; Bree’s 
“ Bird’s of Europe, not found in Britain” ; Wood’s “Illustrated 
Natural History,” Vol. II. (Birds); several other ornithological 
works which contained nothing worth noticing; the Zoologist 
from 1862 to 1874. The Field for the last ten years; and some 
other and less important publications. 
Few people have been at the trouble to attempt any 
scientific investigation of bird-song; and nearly all of those 
persons have erred in generalizing from observation of a few 
individuals. Let me give three illustrations of this defect. 
The first relates to the distinctive cry of the Marsh Titmouse, 
(Parus Ater). Sterland, in his “Birds of Sherwood Forest,” 
p- 86, says “their cry resembles the words ‘chika, chika, 
chika,’ repeated 4 or 5 times in succession, and ending with a 
shorter syllable, ‘chike.’”’ Dr Bull, in the “ Birds of Hereford- 
shire, p. 31, quotes Mr Johns as saying: “the double note of 
the Marsh Tit may be compared to the syllable ‘if he, if he,’ 
rapidly uttered and repeated in the imitation of a sob.” 
Dixon, in “Our Rarer Birds,” p. 68, alludes to its “ peculiar 
ery of ‘tay, tay, tay,’ a note unlike that of any other bird.” 
Yarrell, in his first Edition, Vol. I, p. 347, has “the call-note 
of this species is a single sharp chirp, like that of the other 
tits, and this bird is only to be distinguished from them by its 
voice when it puts forth a rapid succession of notes, more 
remarkable for chattering gaiety than for quality of tone.” 
Bechstein says that during the pairing season its call is 
“diar, diar, hitzi, ailtz, ailtz,” “Nat. H. C. Birds,” 280. 
White, of Selborne, remarked that about February, “it 
begins to make two sharp notes which some people compare 
to the whetting of a saw.” Hach of these descriptions differs 
somewhat from the others, and conveys to me but slight 
a eee 
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