FAMILY 



I liavt- found iiioM \\ 



-i 1 1 iple syllables which properly carry the idea of mon- 

 otony with them. Mr. Chapman \\rii.-ii " t 'l t 'unj. ching, 

 and Mr. .Jon.-s, " Che, che, che, Evi- 



dently both are shorter forms of the song as I have 

 recorded it above. 



It is a comparatively simple matter to record any 

 or all of the Warblers' son^s on tin- musical stall pi-<>- 

 rnlnl onecan obtain them; but it is an extremely ditH- 

 cult task to supply one's self with tlie immense -.|iiij. mem 

 necessary to perform such work completely. It is an n i 

 terly discouraging thing for one who wishes to learn tin- 

 songs, to have nothing but meaningless syllables to de- 

 pend upon, and it is quite as discouraging to the one who 

 desires to collect the music and incorporate it in its 

 proper form on the musical staff, to find that he must 

 travel from Dan to Beersheba and hear thousands of 

 Warblers before he can be sure of his song typ 

 write authoritatively about the small matter of a score of 

 species! So far, that has never been done, but no doubt 

 it will be done in time. If, therefore, some of my no- 

 tations belonging to certain Warblers are meagre and 

 unsatisfactory, the reason is obvious ; after years of 

 watching and waiting I obtained but little. But I am 

 convinced that this little in true musical form is worth 

 all the silly syllables that ever were invented by impress- 

 ing our sensible English language for a service which it 

 was certainly never intended to perform. 



Family Troglodytidce. 

 MOCKINGBIRDS, THRASHERS, WRENS, ETC. 



In this family are the Mockingbird, Catbird, and 

 Brown Thrasher, all distinctively American birds, and the 

 Wren. It is a significant fact that their music is very 

 similar, although the songs of the Wrens are decidedly 

 fluent, and in this respect different from the hesitating. 

 halting character of those of the other three birds. 

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