° ■ 1915 J Correspondence. 103 



Fins, Feathers and Fur, Bull. Minn. Game and Fish Com., No. 3, 

 September, 1915. 



Forest and Stream, LXXXV, Nos. 9-12, September to December, 1915. 



Ibis, The, (10) III, No. 4, October, 1915. j 



Messager Ornithologique, VI, No. 3. 



Oologist, The, XXXII, Nos. 9-11, September-November, 1915. 



Oregon Sportsman, The, III, No. 8, October, 1915. (Quarterly.) 



Ottawa Naturalist, The, XXIX, Nos. 5-6 and 7, August-October, 1915. 



Philippine Journal of Science, X, Nos. 2 and 3, March and May, 1915. 



Revue Frangaise d'Ornithologie, VII, No. 78, October, 1915. 



Science, N. S., XLII, Nos. 1081-1094. 



Scottish Naturalist, The, Nos. 45 to 47, September to November, 1915. 



South Australian Ornithologist, The, II, Part 4, October, 1915. 



Verhandlungen der Ornith. Gesellsch. in Bayern, Band XII, Heft. 3, 

 July, 1915. 



Wilson Bulletin, The, XXVII, No. 3, September, 1915. 



Zoologist, The, XIX, Nos. 225-227, September to November, 1915. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Editor of 'The Auk'. 

 Dear Sir: — 



I note that in the October number of 'The Auk,' Mr. Robert Thomas 

 Moore presents some criticisms of what I have chosen to call the graphic 

 method of recording bird songs. Since Mr. Moore credits me with a 

 statement that I did not make, and since many of the faults he finds are 

 the result of misunderstanding, or exist principally in his own imagination, 

 I should like to take a little space to answer him. 



In the beginning we must realize that it is our intention to study bird 

 songs, not from the standpoint of a musician but from that of a scientist. 

 We care little for the fact that musicians do not consider pronunciation a 

 factor worth dealing with. If it has no application to bird music, it makes 

 little difference what the musician's definition of a trill is. If musicians 

 consider that the duration of a song in seconds is of secondary importance 

 to them, that is no reason why it is of secondary importance to the scientist. 

 The bird-lover may care little about the amount of white on the j unco's 

 tail. All he wants to know is that it is a junco, after which he spends his 

 time admiring the dainty contrast of its colors. But to the student of bird 

 plumages the amount of white is important, and there may be cases where 

 such a character becomes of extremely great importance. The same thing 

 applies to bird song. The length of a song is one of its characters, a charac- 

 ter that may be specific, that may have just as great, or even greater im- 



