THE MEANING OF MUSIC AMONG BIRDS. 79 
and there is an evident connection between the tree 
top and the high place (in every respect) and music. 
No original water haunter or ground builder ever 
sang. Every melody is a march—a command to 
move onward—to every ear that can truly compre- 
hend it. 
Yet music with the birds has been perverted or 
has yet the trail of the lower passions over it. Per- 
haps if a brief general definition of bird song were 
attempted none would be better than “a vocal effort 
intended to please.” Yet this would fall far short of 
all that song may sometimes mean. While the pleas- 
ing feature may be very basic, song may have a more 
primitive element of being a mere call for assemblage 
or the other feature of advertising the singer’s posi- 
tion. 
This calling feature is doubtless low down in all 
vocal effort. It may be only an offshoot from the 
social expressions and by-talks of young birds in the 
nest, or it may be that all calls have come out of dis- 
tress cries provoked by pain, hunger, fear, or anger. 
The language of these is very primitive and uni- 
versally understood. If a dog howls in pain, the 
mother birds near by will shriek and scold in sym- 
pathy, not at the dog, but at the common enemy. 
Out of the consoling tones of parents the tender 
calls may have had their origin, and a desire to please 
and attract, by selective action and actual practice, 
may have developed these into the highest song. 
Other birds which have a single tone for all pur- 
poses—fear, distress, rejoicing, scolding, cheering, 
