VI On the Songs of Birds 129 



songs. There is hardly a bird so completely master 

 of its instrument as never to lapse into sounds that 

 are rather noise than music, — or, in technical lan- 

 guage, sounds caused by vibrations that are not 

 repeated at exactly equal and very small intervals. 

 And in some very curious " songs," such as those of 

 the Grasshopper Warbler and Wood-wren, which are 

 like the winding of a watch or a fishing-reel, there is 

 really no musical sound at all. Songs we call them, 

 for they are pleasant to the ear, and fully answer the 

 purpose of a song; but they are not sounds which 

 can properly be called musical. 



But the voices of our best singers. Nightingale, 

 Song-thrush, Blackcap, Blackbird, Eobin, Skylark, 

 and others, are for the most part really musical; 

 these play upon instruments which constant use and 

 natural selection has rendered wonderfully pleasing 

 in tone, and the fact that they perform (unlike the 

 boisterous Canary) out of doors, and among many 

 other sounds, prevents the sensitive ear from feeling 

 their wildness too painfully. But in what sense 

 are they music ? We may fairly enough call them 

 musical, but how nearly do they approach to the 

 nature of our highly-developed art ? 



The question can be answered without much 

 difficulty by any one who has a sufficiently trained 

 ear, and will take the trouble to try and write down 

 in musical notation some of the songs he hears, Hia 



K 



