FAMILY Fringlllidx. 



easily recognized by one a stranger to it but familiar 

 with its various syllabic interpretations which an- found 

 in every book on birds. Tin- coiiiiiiont-^t form of the 

 song is written: Old Sam Pea-body, Pea-body, Pea-body.* 

 Another form runs, ,svm- n-h>'<it Pe-ver-ly, Pe-ver-ly, Pe- 

 ver-ly; and yet another, All day whit-tl-in\ whit-tl-in\ 

 whit-tl-iri 1 ; and still another, Oh fiear me, Ther-esa, 

 flier -esa, Tlu'r-cwi : and again another, All day long 

 fid-dle-in\ fid-dle-iri* , fid-dle-in\ This should be enouglr 

 to impress one with the fact that the White-throat'i 

 song has a decidedly stereotyped character; but there is 

 considerable variety in the little fellow's music, and it 

 will soon be discovered that these syllables are only in- 

 dicative of an unvarying rhythm. Of that mechanical 

 form Mr. Cheney says, "The little twelve- toned melody 

 of this Sparrow is a flash of inspiration one of those 

 lucky finds, such as poets have the charm of which lies 

 in its rhythm." Then he, a musician, adds what any 

 unmusical person might have told us if he had only been 

 sharp enough to think of it, " First come three long 

 tones of equal length, forming together one half of the 

 entire song; then three clusters of three short tones, 



* In Footing it in Franconia, Mr. Bradford Torre j 7 says, alluding, 

 to the form of the song' 1 1 was relieved to find all the Franconia 

 White-throated Sparrows introducing their sets of triplets with 

 two not three longer single notes. That was how I had always 

 whistled the tune; and I had been astonished and grieved to see it 

 printed in musical notation by Mr. Cheney, and again by Mr. 

 Chapman, with an introductory measure of three notes, as if it 

 were to go ' Old Sam, Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody/ instead of 

 as I remembered it, and as reason dictated, ' Old Sam Peabody 

 Peabody, Peabody.' I am not intimating that Mr. Cheney and Mr. 

 Chapman are wrong, but that my own recollection was right." 

 Mr. Torrey is correct as far as he goes, but he does not go quite far 

 enough. In the height of the nuptial season this Sparrow is very 

 apt to extend his song, and in the fall season he invariably cuts it 

 short (for an illustration of this last point, see Mr. Cheney's Wood 

 Notes Wild, pg. 43). Also birds in different localities sing different 

 forms of the song. In the southern Green Mountains, I have heard 

 the three sustained notes distinctly sung; I have also three records 

 taken in Campton (see my own records), twenty-four miles south of 

 Franconia " as the crow flies." It is a fact, though, that the com- 

 monest form of the song is by far that with but two sustained 

 notes at least in the White Mountain district. 



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