^°'i™"^] General Notes. 79 



pertoire of the whole species. We might give, for instance, staff representa- 

 tions of twenty, or even fifty in some cases, of different Song Sparrows, and 

 yet these would match but few of the next twenty or fifty. Most song- 

 birds, too, have different songs and notes in autumn, mostly altered frag- 

 ments of their regular spring songs. And yet again, birds of the same 

 species vary in different parts of the country. For examples: The Oven- 

 bird in New York says teacher, teacher, teacher, while in the Potomac region 

 he never says anything like it, but instead, tsit, tsit, tsit, loud and sharp. 

 The Towhee in the vicinity of Washington, D. C, sings — tr/1-1-1-1-1, the 

 higher part with a charming metallic trill, while in the middle west his song 

 is — tr/te-te-te-te-te, neither metalhc nor trilled. The eastern Meadow- 

 lark in western Illinois in spring scarcely ever sings his characteristic tin- 

 whistle song, but generally, while perched upon a fence-post, utters his 

 ground buzzing, castanet rattle with up-and-down variations, prolonged 

 to the full length of a Song Sparrow's performance in May. 



Practically I often identify a bird more by the quality ctf style, or both, 

 of its utterance than by the number and succession of its notes ; and these, 

 the quality and style, can only with difficulty be denoted on the five-line 

 staff. These characteristics are generally described at length in the ac- 

 companying text. Perhaps this is the best that can be done. Of course, 

 a system of sj'mbols can easily be devised to be Avritten under each note in 

 the staff, but they would be so numerous that the learner would have to 

 practice upon them a long time in order to be able to read them rapidly. 



In my own field practice I use the system already illustrated above, with 

 about twenty s>Tnbols underneath to indicate timbre, tin-whistle or fife 

 tone, chip, chirp, chatter, trill, warble, squeal, squall, aspirated or wheezy 

 character, etc. 



The greatest difficulty imitators encounter in representing upon paper 

 the songs and notes of birds is the fact that surprisingly few persons — 

 only one in a hundi-ed or a thousand, perhaps — could understand fully 

 even the most perfect system of notation that could be devised. Phoneti- 

 cians, even those of the highest order, such as are employed in the compila- 

 tion of om- standard dictionaries and schoolbooks, often fail to understand 

 one another clearly; and but few people, one in a hundi-ed or more, perhaps, 

 are musicians far enough advanced to be able to perceive clearly what 

 would be meant by some of the characters that would have to be employed, 

 even when explained at length. 



An elocutionist and phonetician in Chicago once showed me a very 

 elaborate chart which he had compiled of all the phonic elements in the 

 Enghsh language, that he was about to pubhsh as " the greatest thing out." 

 My glance at it was so short that I read but one item, and that was, that 

 long a as in fate was diphthongal. I asked him whether a was diphthongal 

 or a compound in the word chaos. That tlii-ew him into a spasm of cogita- 

 tion, from which he had not recovered when I last heard from him ! Some 

 people imagine they pronounce the r in harder when in fact they say hodda. 

 In Hstening to some EngUshmen we vaguely think they pronounce the 



