FAMILY Icterid2. 
It came from an Oriole one morning in June, as I 
sat on the piazza of my cottage in Campton. The bird 
came and went in a few minutes and I never got an- 
other note from him. This is the music of song No. 
2 in the preceding records; certainly it is a most sprightly 
cadenza deserving a good beginning. All of this music 
is remarkable for its syncopated character; look at the 
bars and it will be seen that the bird occasionally fails to 
put in an important note at the proper place, or that he 
accents a note without reference to the time-beat. In 
music this is called syncopation, and in the popular esti- 
mate, rag-time! JI have never discovered this character 
in the song of any other species than the Oriole; it be- 
longs exclusively to this bird. Here is a remarkable in- 
stance of syncopation, which I took from an Oriole that 
sang in the Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass. 
> 
igs : a) oe 
The accents are out of all proper relation to the time- 
beat. How well the Oriole can deliver a series of thirds 
in a minor strain the following transcription, however 
incomplete, will show: 
m 
and one of the most striking instances of his ability 
to jump back and forth on an interval of a third, is de- 
68 
