FAMILY Fringillidz. 
easily recognized by one a stranger to it but familiar 
with its various syllabic interpretations which are found 
in every book on birds. The commonest form of the 
song is written: Old Sam Pea-body, Pea-body, Pea-body.* 
Another form runs, Sow wheat Fe-ver-ly, Pe-ver-ly, Pe- 
ver-ly; and yet another, All day whit-tl-in’, whit-tl-iv’, 
whit-tl-iv’ ; and still another, Oh hear me, Ther-esa, 
Ther-esa, Ther-esa; and again another, All day long 
fid-dle-in’, fid-dle-in’, fid-dle-in’. This should be enougk 
to impress one with the fact that the White-throat’s 
song has a decidedly stereotyped character; but there is 
considerable variety in the little fellow’s music, and it 
will soon be discovered that these syllables are only in- 
dicative of an unvarying rhythm. Of that mechanical 
form Mr. Cheney says, ‘‘ The little twelve-toned melody 
of this Sparrow is a flash of inspiration—one of those 
lucky finds, such as poets have—the charm of which lies 
in its rhythm.” Then he, a musician, adds what any 
unmusical person might have told usif he had only been 
sharp enough to think of it, ‘‘ First come three long 
tones of equal length, forming together one half of the 
entire song; then three clusters of three short tones, 
* In Footing it in Franconia, Mr. Bradford Torre~ says, alluding, 
to the form of the song—‘ I was relieved to find all the Franconia 
White-throated Sparrows introducing their sets of triplets with 
two—not three—longer single notes. That was how I had always 
whistled the tune; and I had been astonished and grieved to see it 
printed in musical notation by Mr. Cheney, and again by Mr. 
Chapman, with an introductory measure of three notes, as if it 
were to go ‘Old Sam, Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody,’ instead of 
as I remembered it, and as reason dictated, ‘Old Sam Peabody 
Peabody, Peabody.’ I am not intimating that Mr. Cheney and Mr. 
Chapman are wrong, but that my own recollection was right.” 
Mr. Torrey is correct as far as he goes, but he does not go, quite far 
enough. In the height of the nuptial season this Sparrow is very 
apt to extend his song, and in the fall season he invariably cuts it 
short (for an illustration of this last point, see Mr. Cheney’s Wood 
Notes Wild, pg. 43). Also birds in different localities sing different 
forms of the song. In the southern Green Mountains, I have heard 
the three sustained notes distinctly sung; I have also three records 
taken in Campton (see my own records), twenty-four miles south of 
Franconia ‘‘ as the crow flies.” It is a fact, though, that the com: 
monest form of the song is by far that with but two sustained 
notes—at least in the White Mountain district. 
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