EDITOR’S PREFACE. vii 
character of the tones it set ringing in his mind. Music 
was the standard. In addition to this, and hardly less 
important, his heart and brain were full of youth and 
enthusiasm; he stood to the last before both man and 
Nature, decided in his likes and dislikes, hearty in his 
love and hatred, eager and joyous — and wayward — as a 
boy. “My threescore and ten are numbered,” he writes 
on his birthday, “but for the life of me I can’t feel old, 
can’t think old.” Such, in a word, was the reporter of 
the “ Wood Notes Wild ;” and the only justification of his 
work that he cared to make was characteristically simple, 
— “A little bird told me so.” 
As before stated, it has been sought, by means of an 
appendix, to supplement the record of the birds the songs 
of which are presented, and to point to such information 
on the general subject of bird music as might prove acces- 
sible, —the matter being drawn from both scientific and 
popular sources. Few supplementary notations of bird 
songs appear, for the reason that they are not easy to 
find. Indeed, two hundred letters sent to ornithologists 
and librarians of this country and of Europe, in addition 
to no little personal research, indicate that there are not 
many such notations in existence. Dr. F. Granauer, of 
K. K. Universitits-Bibliothek, Vienna, writes that none 
are to be found in that library either in books or peri- 
odicals; while Dr. Golz, of Berlin, writes: “What your 
Audubon, Wilson, and others say with reference to the 
bird-songs has not been excelled in Germany. What we 
have is in Brehm’s ‘Gefangene Vogel.” Brehm’s work 
contains no notations. 
