FAMILY Mniotiltide. 
need whatever of getting them confused. Here is one 
of those distinctions again which possibly some one may 
be inclined to classify among the hair-splitting order; if 
so, I must say it will be wholly because insufficient 
attention is paid to those graphic signs belonging to 
musical notation which a child could understand! Com- 
pare my notations. Here is the Chestnut-sided War- 
bler’s ‘song, in: dots?) As itieacte ee ee 
here it is in easily obtained musical form: 
I wish, [wish, I wish, to see Miss Beeche™ 
To use a trite saying, the difference between this and the 
Yellow Warbler song No. 2 is as plain as the nose on 
your face! One bird chirps up, the other down, for the 
first three or four double notes, then one bird sings 
a group of notes down, up, and down, and the other, 
vice versa (with absolute distinctness) wp, down, and up! 
There is a slight hesitancy which one merely suspects in 
the Chestnut-sided’s effort just before he reaches the 
group of the three final notes, so this I have properly in- 
dicated by the, very short rest. Thus, we have, I be- 
lieve, a perfectly simple analysis of a certain difference 
between two similar songs, which, for one reason ot 
another, the ornithologists have been unable to give us. 
IT need not add that without musical notation it would 
be practically impossible to prove the case. So much for 
the usefulness of scientific music in its relation to a bird’s 
song! 
It is generally true that the song of the Chestnut-sided 
consists of seven (Mr. Jones seems to thinks s7a) syllables; 
but once in a while the little fellow disregards the rule 
and sings on this wise: 
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