III. 



REMARKS ON THE SONG AND NOTES OF BIRDS. 



THE songs and call-notes of birds have ever had 

 a fascinating interest for me ; the beauty of the 

 former and the variety of the latter are beyond all 

 powers of written expression or description. Of 

 all the sounds uttered by living creatures, the songs 

 of birds are incomparably the sweetest ; in many 

 ways the various call-notes, as I hope ultimately 

 to show, are of great utility. The pleasure derived 

 from listening to the sweet music of our native 

 birds is indeed no small one ; but when we come 

 to study the philosophy of songs and call-notes, 

 to ponder over the various questions they suggest, 

 the entire subject rises to a higher and even still 

 more fascinating degree of importance. In the 

 present short essay I do not propose to enter very 

 deeply into the strictly philosophical portion of the 

 subject, but rather to dwell on certain well-marked 

 characteristics of the songs of British birds which 

 have received but little attention from ornitholo- 



