206 NATURE STUDY. 



acter of its own and a peculiar relation to the other chords. 

 It would then be perfectly natural that the scale which 

 produces chords of the greatest variet}' and individuality 

 should be the nearest to nature. This is true of the minor 

 scale. The seven tones of the major scale produce three 

 kinds of three-voiced chords (triads), three of them major, 

 three minor and one diminished. The seven tones of the 

 minor scale produce four kinds of triads, two minor, two 

 major, two diminished and one augmented. The seventh- 

 chords founded on the fifth tone (dominant) of the scale 

 in both major and minor are identical, but the ninth- 

 chords founded on the same tone are different, the domi- 

 nant ninth-chord in the minor key being the richest and 

 fullest of all chords and being called the fundamental 

 chord of nature. In the key of C minor this chord would 

 have the base G with its major third B, its fifth D, its 

 minor seventh F and its minor ninth, A flat. So much 

 for the comparative value of the two scales and the har- 

 monies belonging to them. 



The music of birds is baffling to the transcriber because 

 the singers do not conform to the requirements of our 

 notation. They produce not merely twelve tones of differ- 

 ent pitch between a given note and its octave, but any 

 number ; mathematically speaking, an infinite number. 

 If a violin player starts a tone, say, on the open A string 

 and slides his finger up the string without interrupting the 

 bowing until he has sounded the octave above he has 

 practically produced an infinite number of tones of differ- 

 ent pitch within the octave. Oui; chromatic scale from A 

 to A inclusive may be represented by thirteen beads on a 

 string, separate and equidistant. On the violin the .scale 

 described above, the sliding scale, could only be repre- 

 sented by the string which holds the beads ;- i. e., by a 

 continuous line. The notes of bird songs may alight at 

 any point of this continuous line, not merely on one of the 



