Bird Music in South America. 151 



believe that the printed word represents some avian 

 sound to the reader, and that those who have never 

 heard the sound can by this simple means get an 

 idea of it ; just as certain arbitrary marks or signs 

 on a sheet of written music represent human sounds. 

 It is fancy and a delusion. We have not yet in- 

 vented any system of arbitrary signs to represent 

 bird sounds, nor are we likely to invent such a sys- 

 tem, because, in the first place, we do not properly 

 know the sounds, and, owing to their number and 

 character, cannot properly know more than a very 

 few of them ; and, in the second place, because they 

 are different in each species : and just as our human 

 notation represents solely our human specific sounds, 

 so a notation of one bird's language, that of the 

 skylark, let us say, would not apply to the language 

 of another species, the nightingale, say, on account 

 of the difference in quality and timbre of the two. 



One cause of the extreme difficulty of describing 

 bird sounds so as to give anything approaching to a 

 correct idea of them, lies in the fact that in most of 

 them, from the loudest the clanging scream or call 

 that may be heard a distance of two or three miles 

 to the faintest tinkling or lisping note that might 

 be emitted by a creature no bigger than a fly, there 

 is a certain aerial quality which makes them differ 

 from all other sounds. Doubtless several causes 

 contribute to give them this character. There is 

 the great development of the vocal organ, which 

 makes the voice, albeit finer, more far-reaching than 

 that of other creatures of equal size or larger. The 



