L82 Moors, The Fox Sparrow as a Songster, [April 



:is we would expect, the most distant croups display the greatest 

 divergences, the songs of Grindstone, for instance, manifesting 

 a tendency toward ornamentation, such as trills, rests and grace 

 notes and being rendered in four time, whereas the songs o{ Grosse 



Isle are plainer and usually in three or five time. 



Having noticed these similarities within the groups, we are next 

 concerned to discover those characteristics which are constant in 

 all Fox Sparrow songs. It has already been intimated that he is 

 not at all particular whether there are 2, 3, or 5 eighth notes in a 

 measure; equally indifferent is he to the use of grace notes, dotted 

 notes, staeeato notes and trills, which may or may not he present. 

 Sometimes he will satisfy the demands of human music by return- 

 ing at the elose to a note of the common chord, with which he 

 started, or again he will end aimlessly as in records 6 and 7 or ask 

 a positive question as in No. S. Furthermore he occasionally slips 

 into minor keys (Records 6, 7. ami 11), a most unexpected lapse, 

 when one considers what dancing movements of joy his phrases are. 

 But despite this inconstancy there are certain fundamental char- 

 acteristics which never change. First, the quality of ton 

 always round and full, like the sound of a clear tlnte-note. It is 

 not rendered ambiguous by what Mr. Schuyler Matthews calls 

 "burred tones/ 1 on the other hand it is not enriched by those oxer- 

 times, which make the notes of the Wood Thrush so ethereal. 

 It is decidedly human without touch of heavenly rapture, just a 

 clear full tone, which is precisely the best medium for a message of 

 joy and the most invigorating imaginable. A second invariable 

 characteristic is the medium pitch of the songs and here the Fox 

 Sparrow differs from the Hermit Thrush and many of our greatest 

 songsters, who climb to such shrill heights that one sometimes 

 doubts their sense for beauty. 1 Our more sensible finch does nor 

 sing a note which a human being cannot whistle and all of them 

 are pitched in those last two octaves of the piano, which seem to 

 be the most satisfying region for the expression of bird-music. In 

 the third plaee every song is extremely Loud at least in its funda- 

 mental sounds, so that it can be heard half a mile. Sometimes the 



' Nevertheless W« must not forgot that what is beautiful to our oars, may not 

 be to a bird's, and vice vers 



