THE MUSICAL SCALES OF THE THRUSHES 



It may seem rather extravagant praise to sum up the 

 song of the Hermit Thrush in the unqualified terms I have 

 used on pages 256-57, but I am confident that a close stu- 

 dent of his music must surely arrive at the conclusion that 

 it possesses a subtle charm which rarely if ever distin- 

 guishes the songs of other birds. Theodore Roosevelt has 

 expressed himself most emphatically on that point, he 

 writes: "In melody, and above all in that finer, higher 

 melody where the chords vibrate with the touch of eternal 

 sorrow, it (the Nightingale) cannot rank with such singers 

 as the Wood Thrush and Hermit Thrush. The serene, 

 ethereal beauty of the Hermit's song, rising and falling 

 through the still evening under the archways of hoary 

 mountain forests that have endured from time everlasting; 

 the golden leisurely chiming of the Wood Thrush sounding 

 on a June afternoon, stanza by stanza, through sun-flecked 

 groves of tall hickories, oaks, and chestnuts with these 

 there is nothing in the Nightingale's song to compare." 

 I wrote here, years ago, in similar vein: "The passionate 

 and plaintive notes of the Nightingale apparently have no 

 place in the Hermit's song; our gifted Thrush sings more of 

 the glory of life and less of its tragedy, more of the joy of 

 heaven and less of the passion of earth. That is a purely 

 human point of view all the more significant because one 

 bird sings to the European, and the other to the American 

 ear." (See page 257.) 



To sum it up in a few words, no other bird has developed 

 what is plainly an intelligent use of a musical scale aptly 

 fitted for expressive song the so-called Pentatonic Scale. 

 We have become so familiar with the two comprehensive, 

 modern scales, the Chromatic which includes all the tones 

 within the octave, and th& Diatonic which, in the key of 

 C, is represented by the seven ivories of the piano keyboard 



