I 34 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



birds as have developed a fixed phrase by which to 

 express their emotions. And yet I doubt whether 

 the analogy would be a very sound or useful one. 

 As far as I can judge, there is in the music of the 

 birds neither time nor rhythm nor scale ; and these 

 are the essential and primal elements out of which, 

 together with tonality, our human music has been 

 developed. What can be gained by painful attempts 

 to express the songs of birds in terms of an art which 

 has nothing in common with them except tone ? 



All efforts, then, on the part of ingenious persons 

 to translate the language of the birds into their own 

 are in my opinion lost labour, and can lead to no 

 increase of our knowledge. But perhaps some one 

 may object that they are no more lost labour 

 than the birds' songs themselves, which may seem 

 to be among those animal utterances which mean 

 little and lead to nothing. Such an argument, how- 

 ever, would be wholly unfounded and unfair, for a 

 bird's song has beyond all question both meaning 

 and value ; and though we cannot always be sure of 

 the purpose it serves, we can at least arrive at some 

 general conclusions on the subject, to be illustrated 

 or corrected by the observation of every day. I will 

 next take a glance at these conclusions — with the 

 premise, however, that we are here, as indeed through- 

 out this chapter, dealing with the true songs only, 

 and not with the innumerable call-notes and alarm- 



