FAMILY Icteridx. 



It came from an Oriole one morning in June, as I 

 sat on the piazza of my cottage in Campton. The bird 

 came and went in a few minutes and I never got an- 

 other note from him. This is the music of song No. 

 2 in the preceding records; certainly it is a most sprightly 

 cadenza deserving a good beginning. Ail of this music 

 id remarkable for its syncopated character; look at the 

 bars and it will be seen that the bird occasionally fails to 

 put in an important note at the proper place, or that In 

 accents a note without reference to the time-beat. In 

 music this is called syncopation, and in the popul 

 mate, rag-time! I have never discovered this character 

 in the song of any other species than the Oriole; it be- 

 longs exclusively to this bird. Here is a remarkable in- 

 stance of syncopation, which I took from an Oriole that 

 sang in the Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass. 



w* 



The accents are out of all proper relation to the time- 

 beat. How well the Oriole can deliver a series of thirds 

 In a minor strain the following transcription, however 

 incomplete, will show: 



8va 



^=84 Vivace 





-ft- 



and one of the most striking instances of his ability 



to jump back and forth on an interval of a third, is de- 



68 



