538 Correspondence. [oct. 



exactly the same amount of time, four tenths of a second, and each pause 

 consumes two tenths of a second or exactly half the amount, credited 

 to each set of notes. If we separate each set of notes and its adjoin- 

 ing pause into a measure we would have five equal measures and if we 

 give each set of notes and its pause their proportionate amount of beats, 

 we would give two beats to each set of notes and one to each pause. The 

 whole song would then consist of five measures in perfect 3 time and to 

 know this, e. g. that a wild bird uses naturally a measure of time, employed 

 by humans for many centuries, is a great deal more interesting and im- 

 portant than to learn the detached fact, that the whole song consumed 

 two and tV seconds by a stop watch. It must be admitted there are a 

 few songs, which do not follow any given time through to the end, but Mr. 

 Saunders is wrong, when he says that the old method "does not allow the 

 record" of such songs. The irregular rhythm of the Thrasher's song is 

 perfectly represented by the old method in Mr. Matthews' book and could 

 not be represented so well by this new method. 



By this discussion I believe I have proved that of Mr. Saunders' five 

 chosen characters of song, two, quality and intensity, have not been recorded 

 at all by his method; two, pronunciation and duration are unimportant 

 and can and have been recorded by the old method; and the last, pilch, 

 is not recorded so accurately. Finally a sixth factor of the utmost 

 importance, rhythm, is entirely abandoned. The suggested method is 

 therefore not so comprehensive as the old and, incidentally I have shown, 

 it is not so simple nor so accurate. 



Near the close of this paper Mr. Saunders remarks apropos of the quali- 

 ties necessary for the student for the recording of bird songs that "a 

 knowledge of music is essential also, but it need not be great." In my 

 opinion the student should have at least an accurate knowledge of Har- 

 mony, but at any rate he should certainly know the meaning of ordinary 

 musical terms. A common error of this kind is to confuse the meaning 

 of the word "trill" with that of a " repeated note." As such a mistake 

 renders many records inaccurate, it is necessary to point out that a "trill" 

 is not a series of notes on the same pitch, repeated so rapidly that their 

 number cannot be counted, but is a rapid and regular alternation of two 

 notes of entirely different pitch . 



In conclusion I would like to state that the old system of notation is just 

 as much a "graphic method" as Mr. Saunders' or any other. More than 

 any other graphic system it is a splendid system of symbols, which has been 

 evolved and improved by ages of use and is now better known to the 

 public than any svstem of notation, used in the other departments of bird- 

 work. It has its limitations and will probably be unproved along the line 

 of recording more accurately the natural scale, but such improvements as 

 Mr. Saunders suggests are in the nature of a retrograde movement toward 

 something less comprehensive and less simple. 



Robert Thomas Moore. 



