BIRD-SONGS. 39 
as striking as those of the robin, and sometimes 
it is impossible not to feel that the artist is 
making a deliberate effort to do something out 
of the ordinary course, something better than 
he has ever done before. Now and then he 
prefaces his proper song with many discon- 
nected, extremely staccato notes, following each 
other at very distant and unexpected intervals 
of pitch. It is this, I conclude, which is meant 
by some writer (who it is I cannot now remem- 
ber) when he criticises the wood thrush for 
spending too much time in tuning his instru- 
ment. But the fault is the critic’s, I think; to 
my ear these preliminaries sound rather like 
the recitative which goes before the grand aria. 
Still another musician who delights to take 
liberties with his score is the towhee bunting, 
or chewink. Indeed, he carries the matter so 
far that sometimes it seems almost as if he 
suspected the proximity of some self-conceited 
ornithologist, and were determined, if possible, 
to make a fool of him. And for my part, being 
neither self-conceited nor an ornithologist, I am 
willing to confess that I have once or twice 
been so badly deceived that now the mere sight 
of this Pipilo is, so to speak, a means of grace 
to me. 
One more of these innovators (these heretics, 
as they are most likely called by their more 
