1915 ] Saunders Recording Bird Songs. 173 



Conclusions. 



Oceanodroma leucorhoa occurs regularly in the tropical Atlantic 

 from September to April or May. It has been taken on and south 

 of the Equator in March and April. The range of the species 

 should be restated in part as follows: — Breeds from southern 

 Greenland and the Faeroes south to Maine and the Hebrides; 

 south in migration to the Equator and the vicinity of Cape San 

 Roque, Brazil. 



SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER METHODS OF 

 RECORDING AND STUDYING BIRD SONGS. 



BY ARETAS A. SAUNDERS. 



Up to the present time our methods of recording bird songs have 

 been lacking in uniformity. We realize the fact that bird songs 

 are a great help in field identification of species, when once learned. 

 We admit that a knowledge of these songs is as much to be desired 

 as a knowledge of plumage or migration, that it should occupy as 

 prominent a place in the science of ornithology. But if we search 

 through various writings for records of the song of a given species, 

 we find a heterogeneous and uncertain mixture of data that do not 

 give us any satisfactory impression of the song. Various methods 

 have been used to describe and record bird songs, but so far, only 

 one method, that of musical notation, has been possessed of any 

 scientific accuracy. 



Musical notation, as a method of recording bird songs, has been 

 subject to a great deal of adverse criticism. It has been made 

 primarily for the recording and rendering of human music and birds 

 do not usually sing according to such standards. The musical 

 scale gives no place for the recording of notes that are slightly 

 sharp or flat. Its standards of time do not allow the record of a 

 song that does not follow the rhythmic beat of its measures. Do 



