APPENDIX. 173 



NOTATIONS FROM THE PHONOGRAPH. Contin. 



under my direction, to write it out, and in this way to demon- 

 strate that it could be done. 



" Since these preliminary experiments, I have collected a 

 large quantity of aboriginal music in the same way, and other 

 musical specialists have set it to our scales, but I shall always 

 recall with gratitude the help which he afforded me in my 

 first experimentation. He wrote out for me three songs which 

 were published in my * Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk 

 Lore.' Although I am now of the opinion that the minute 

 variations in the aboriginal intervals and those of Aryan 

 music cannot be more than approximately represented in our 

 method of writing music, I think that the work which he did 

 for me was of- very great importance." Fewkes, Dr. J. W., in 

 a letter to the editor dated March 21, 1891. 



Variations in Bird-Song. 



" The song, for example, of a thrush near London, or in any of the 

 home counties, has little resemblance except in specific character to that 

 of the same bird in Devonshire or near Exeter. The same notes, I sup- 

 pose, will all of them be detected ; but they are arranged for the most part 

 into a different tune, and are not sung in the same way. They are given 

 with different values, and the singing is pitched in a different key. One 

 great distinction between the two cases is the number of guttural notes 

 of which the song of a Devonshire thrush is often made up, but which 

 near London are heard only at the end of a bar, or even much less 

 frequently ; while those chief notes, which mainly constitute the song of 

 the other bird, and make it so impressive, are rarely pronounced by the 

 Devonshire thrush." Jesse, E. : Scenes and Occupations of Country Life 

 (London, 1853), p. 112. 



See Index, Variations, etc. 



Imitation. 



Mr. Allen's statement (see Index, Allen, J. A.), that the 

 oriole song brought vividly to mind that of the Western 

 meadow lark suggests the old subject of the influence of 



