BIRD MUSIC IN SOUTH AMERICA 147 



those that are uttered by mammalians, as bellow- 

 ings, lowings, bleatings, neighings, barkings, and 

 yelpings. Others simulate the sounds of various 

 musical instruments, and human vocal sounds, as 

 of talking, humming a tune, whistling, laughing, 

 moaning, sneezing, coughing, and so on. But in 

 all these, or in a very large majority, there is an 

 airy resonant quality which tells you, even in a 

 deep wood, in the midst of an unfamiliar fauna, 

 that the new and strange sound is uttered by a 

 bird. The clanging anvil is in the clouds; the 

 tinkling bell is somewhere in the air, suspended on 

 nothing; the invisible human creatures that 

 whistle, and hum airs, and whisper to one another, 

 and clap their hands and laugh, are not bound, 

 like ourselves, to earth, but float hither and 

 thither as they list. 



Something of this aerial character is acquired 

 by other sounds, even by the most terrestrial, 

 when heard at a distance in a quiet atmosphere. 

 And some of our finer sounds, as those of the 

 flute and bugle and flageolet, and some others, 

 when heard faintly in the open air, have the airy 

 character of bird notes ; with this difference, that 

 they are dim and indistinct to the sense, while 

 the bird's note, although so airy, is of all sounds 

 the most distinct. 



Mr. John Burroughs, in his excellent Impres- 

 sions of some British Song Birds, has said, that 

 many of the American songsters are shy wood- 



