BIED MUSIC IN SOUTH AMEEICA 143 



bird sounds generally, are seldom describable. 

 We have no symbols to represent such sounds on 

 paper, hence we are as powerless to convey to 

 another the impression they make on us as we are 

 to describe the odors of flowers. It is hard, per- 

 haps, to convince ourselves of this powerlessness ; 

 in my case the saddening knowledge was forced 

 on me in such a way that escape was impossible. 

 No person at a distance from England could have 

 striven harder than I did, by inquiring of those 

 who knew and by reading ornithological works, to 

 get a just idea of the songs of British birds. Yet 

 all my pains were wasted, as I found out after- 

 wards when I heard them, and when almost every 

 song came to me as a surprise. It could not have 

 been otherwise. To name only half a dozen of the 

 lesser British melodists : the little jets of brilliant 

 melody spurted out by the robin; the more sus- 

 tained lyric of the wren, sharp, yet delicate; the 

 careless half-song half -recitative of the common 

 warbler; the small fragments of dreamy aerial 

 music emitted by the wood wren amidst the high 

 translucent foliage ; the hurried, fantastic medley 

 of liquid and grating sounds of the reed warbler; 

 the song, called by some a twitter, of the swallow, 

 in which the quick, upleaping notes seem to dance 

 in the air, to fall more than one at a time on the 

 sense, as if more than one bird sang, spontaneous 

 and glad as the laughter of some fairy-like, unim- 

 aginable child who can give any idea of such 

 sounds as these with such symbols as words! It 



