228 Correspondence. LAprii 



whicli was refused publication was one from Mr. Bailey discussing the 

 fitness of certain gentlemen for the various classes of membership. As 

 Mr. Bailey declined to omit this personal matter his letter was retvirned.l 



Graphic Representation of Bird Song. 



[At Mr. Moore's special request 'The Auk' publishes his letter, below. 

 With his permission a copy was sent to Mr. Saunders whose rejoinder 

 follows. These contributions will close this discussion.^ — Ed.] 



Editor of 'The Auk,' 

 Dear Sir: — 



In the January issue of 'The Auk' Mr. Saunders complains that "many 

 of the faults" I found with his system "are the result of misunderstanding." 

 If I misunderstood him, I regret it. My purpose was' to point out kindly 

 to one who is just beginning to record bird-songs scientifically, the limita- 

 tions of his methods, so plain to those w ho have devoted years to the same 

 study. I assumed that when he elected to employ technical terms, he 

 would wish to use them with the "scientific" precision musicians employ. 

 Now that he admits attaching to them the various and often contradictory 

 meanings found in large family dictionaries, the reason for our misunder- 

 standing is apparent. I am no longer astounded by his careless use of 

 such technical terms as, "duration," "time" and "rhythm," and his most 

 serious confusion of the "trill" with the "repeated note." When he has 

 "recorded enough songs" even of the few species he has worked on, he 

 will have to revise his wild assumption that the "shake must be rare in 

 bird music." The shake or trill is not rare! Indeed, it is employed by the 

 very birds whose songs he records! It is not uncommon in songs of Field 

 Sparrow, Song Sparrow and Purple Finch, and in a form of wide range is 

 characteristic of the Vesper Sparrow.^ If Mr. Saunders really cares to be 

 as "scientific" as musicians, he will find this factor decidedly "worth 

 bothering" his "head about!" 



Mr. Saunders casts many aspersions at the methods of musicians. 

 Among others, he charges them with artificially changing bird songs "in 

 both pitch and time to fit the method." It is possible he did this when he 

 used the musical method, but I know of none who have. Our field methods 

 are just as scientifically accurate as his, for some of us discovered the stop- 

 watch long ago and use both it and the more valuable metronome. Person- 

 ally I do not "decide on some key the bird is supposed to sing!" I do not 

 record the key in the field at all and if none exists, leave the song as it is. 

 As to pitgh, I record every note that is off the pitch with its approximate 

 variation, which is all that Mr. Saunders does. As to tirne I use for a unit 



I See Schuyler Matthews' " Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music, pp. 106-122- 

 123-87. 



