FAMILY Icterid2. 
and the most optimistic interpreter could never clear it 
of a certain plaintive quality. That is wholly due to the 
bird’s habit of slurring his notes. It would be impossible 
to represent them by dots—only a series of curves can 
describe his indecisive attempts at ‘‘hitting” a tone 
somewhere at random, thus: 
Gee ea 
No writer seems to have sufficiently emphasized this 
point; indeed, all have apparently neglected it. Words 
and high-sounding phrases are useless if not meaningless 
without some adequate demonstration of facts when one 
attempts to describe a bird’s song. Now, at best, it is 
very difficult to convey an idea of sound on the printed 
page without proper musical notations; and if such 
notations are employed and one does not read music, 
the situation is still unimproved. Evidently, then, it — 
becomes emphatically necessary to present the essential 
character of a song by some simple means, and make it 
still plainer by similes. If you will therefore whistle 
the three curves given above the way they ought to be 
whistled (providing there is such a thing as a curving 
whistle) you will get the Meadowlark’s song! In other 
words, a tone must be given descending or sliding to the 
first tone below, then repeated with a slide to the fourth 
tone below, and then repeated the third time exactly as 
it was given at first. That expresses the essential char- 
acter of the Meadowlark’s music. But that is, of course, 
one song, and we must remember if fifty of the birds sing 
there will be fifty songs! But in every one of them the 
principle of the slur is absolutely maintained. Yet for 
all that, even Mr. Cheney fails to place in his notations 
of the Meadowlark’s song the very essential slurs (i. e., 
dashes) and grace notes, which would stamp the music 
at once with its proper character.* It is undoubtedly 
the case, however, with many musicians, that they take 
too much for granted, and fail to be explicit. Mr. Chap- 
man also does not ‘‘ dash” the beautiful little melody on 
*T am ata loss to understand why, because he was a most acute 
observer. 
58 
