LEARNING BIRDS' SONGS 71 



there is in bird-music considerable sentiment of the 

 same sort as there is in our own. Sometimes there 

 may be a suggestion in form, as when Mr. Henry 

 Oldys notes in a meadowlark's song a snatch of the 

 " Toreador Song " from " Carmen." More often 

 to me the resemblance is in calling up the same sort 

 of feelings which are aroused by some favorite com- 

 position. The wood thrush calling from out the 

 gloaming brings to my mind sometimes the opening 

 appeal in Weber's " Invitation to the Dance " and 

 again " the sweetly solemn thought " of Handel's 

 " Largo " from Xerxes. When the tinkling songs 

 of the water thrush or the winter wren issue forth 

 from the banks of the mountain brook in the forest, 

 I seem to hear the rippling arabesques of Bendel's 

 " Silver Spring." The bobolink almost sings the 

 " friskas " or " czardas " of some of Liszt's Hun- 

 garian Rhapsodies, and the field sparrow the pearly 

 ascending progressions of the " Song of the 

 Rhine Daughters " from Gotterdammerung. Our 

 American tone-poet, MacDowell, does not tell very 

 much directly about the birds in his " Woodland 

 Sketches," yet in the happy effusion of the fire-lit 

 redstart I can detect the flavor of " To a Wild Rose," 

 and in the mournful tone of the last lingering veery 

 there is a feeling of " In Autumn." 



As we learn to listen with appreciation to the songs 

 of the birds, we shall be surprised at the wealth of 

 suggestion and mental imagery which comes throng- 

 ing to us. We need the bird-music, in this busy age, 



