Bird Music in South America. 159 



surroundings. Its voice, he says, which is not com- 

 parable to anything we have in Europe, exceeds 

 that of the nightingale in volume and expression. 

 Frequently it sounds like a melody rendered by a 

 flute at a great distance ; at other times its sweet 

 and varied cadences are mingled with clear piercing 

 tones and deep throat-notes. We have really no 

 words, he concludes, adequate to express the effects 

 of this song, heard in the midst of a nature so re- 

 dundant, and of mountain scenery so wild and savage. 



Mr. Simson, in his Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador, 

 writes quite as enthusiastically of a species of 

 Cyphorhinus common in that country. It was the 

 mellowest, most beautiful bird music he had ever 

 heard ; the song was not quite the same in all in- 

 dividuals, and in tone resembled the most sweet- 

 sounding flute ; the musical correctness of the notes 

 was astonishing, and made one imagine the sounds 

 to be produced by human agency. 



Even more valuable is the testimony of Bates, 

 one of the least impressible of the savants who have 

 resided in tropical South America ; yet his account 

 of the bird is not less fascinating than that of 

 D'Orbigny. "I frequently heard," he writes, "in 

 the neighbourhood of these huts the realejo, or 

 organ-bird (Cyphorhinus cantans), the most re- 

 markable songster by far of the Amazonian forest. 

 When its singular notes strike the ear for the first 

 time the impression cannot be resisted that they are 

 produced by a human voice. Some musical boy 

 must be gathering fruits in the thicket, and is sing- 



