FAMILY Fringillidz. 
enough, too, this last melody begins with three accented 
notes in a way remarkably like the Sparrow’s song; in- 
deed, on one occasion I heard the second bar given note 
for note exactly as it occurs in Verdi’s tune, but the 
little bird had tacked on a finale or cadenza all his own: 
A suggestion of Rigoletto. 
He had a mind above such a commonplace thing as an 
operatic score! But we have not yet measured the scope 
or the character of the little musician’s repertoire. He 
has the ability to render a motive in both the major and 
the minor keys, just exactly as Verdi has done in the 
ninth and eleventh bars of the Di Provenza (be sure 
to read them). I had grown quite familiar with a bit of 
melody coming from a bird nesting near my boat-land- 
ing on the river, which ran thus: 
(I must admit the words in the arrangements which fol: 
low are drawn from the imagination.) But before long 
there came a day when the sun refused to shine, and the 
clouds hung dull and gray over the river meadow. I 
was at work on the piazza next my studio listening, as 
usual, to the sparrows, when a pathetic strain caught my 
ear from the direction of the boat-landing; it was the 
same familiar melody, but strangely enough rendered in 
the minor key. Whatdid thatmean? Was it the same 
bird or another? I dropped my paint-brush, seized my 
opera-glass, and ran down on the meadow to investigate. 
Yes, there was the bird in his customary position on the 
top twig of the bush next * to the one in which his mate 
had built a nest not fav from the ground. Then I 
looked for the nest; it was there, too, but there was no 
mate, ‘‘ Ah-ha!” I said to myself, ‘‘a case of domestic 
* He wisely refrained from singing in the same bush which con- 
tained the nest, for that might lead to discovery. 
116 
