VOL. VIII.] THE STUDY OF BIRD-NOTES. 8 



deep voices of birds, such as those of the pigeons, the 

 Eagle-Owl, the Bittern, and of the much deeper 

 tones of many foreign species ; secondly, our whistHng- 

 voice, which reaches from B flat or C natural to G 

 or G sharp 4 : it is excellently adapted to the 

 imitation of the songs of many birds, such as those 

 of the Blackbird, the Thrush, the Cuckoo, and the 

 Tawny Owl ; thirdly, organ-pipes from the stop 

 Salicional, which begins where our human whistling- 

 voice and our musical instruments cease — from G4 to 

 D6. To ascertain the very high notes of birds we use 

 a set of such organ-pipes* — G4, B4, C5, E5, G5, 

 B5, C6, D6 — which we carry about in a case in our 

 pocket. As the notes of most European and foreign 

 singing-birds range between A4 to C6, one can 

 understand that to anybody not possessing the organ- 

 pipes this whole field of knowledge is closed. Further 

 the definition of the musical pitch is rendered very 

 difficult on account of the extraordinary timbre of 

 many bird-songs — for instance, the " dilm delm "' 

 (" zilp zalp ") of the ChifEchaff — but with the means 

 at our disposal it is to be obtained. 



But the pitch is never the most essential part of 

 music in general, or of bird-songs in particular. When 

 Ave compose a piece of music we render not only the 

 pitch but also rhythm, intervals, time (=metric), 

 melody, pace, loudness, phraseology. The representa- 

 tion of strophes and calls of birds demands the con- 

 sideration of these same things, and, as we are capable 

 of writing our musical pieces by means of notes, in the 

 same way these international notes are not only available, 

 but even quite sufficient for the songs of birds. For the 

 completion of this, we want only three new signs — 



rr r~ 



for the "roller" (always wrongly called "shake") 



* To be obtained of G. F. Steinmeyer, Oettingen (Bavaria), price 

 10s. the set. 



