INTRODUCTION TO THE REVISED AND ENLARGED 

 EDITION 



Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star 

 In his steep course? So long he seems to pause 

 On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc! 

 The Arve and Arveiron at thy base 

 Rave ceaselessly; but thou, . . . 

 Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, 

 How silently! .... 



. . . sing ye meadow streams with gladsome voice! 

 Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



When in the lapse of a number of years an accumulation 

 of knowledge and experience has enlarged or modified one's 

 mental vision, it is well if the advance goes on record. 



Now, although my estimate of the character and signifi- 

 cance of bird music has undergone little material change 

 during a period of seventeen years, it has grown proportion- 

 ately with those years, and I have added in this new edi- 

 tion the results of my latest study. It is not necessary to 

 apologize for the insistence upon the value of musical nota- 

 tion expressed in my Introduction to Bird Music, there is no 

 avoiding the facts stated therein, nor any cause to enlarge 

 on them; but there is something to be added in relation 

 to the musical scales of the birds, and in appreciation of 

 the musical record and its popular as well as scientific 

 usefulness. 



When one attains the commanding summit of a high 

 mountain the horizon is greatly enlarged. If one remains 

 in the valley and mountain walls shut one in on every side, 

 the world indeed seems small. Coleridge soared upward 

 like the lark when he wrote the lines quoted above. With 



