Vili EDITOR’S PREFACE. 
Librarian F. Thomae, University Library of Tiibingen, 
writes that the only work on bird music known to him 
is Landois’s “Thierstimmen.” Dr. Russ, of Berlin, writes 
a little more encouragingly, saying that there are a few 
notations of bird-songs scattered through “Die gefiederte 
Welt,” a periodical at present under his direction. After 
this report from music-loving, nature-loving, studious 
Germany, there is little hope of help elsewhere. 
The editor, no more of an ornithologist and much less 
of a musician than the author, cannot hope that he has 
steered clear of error; he hopes only for the general 
judgment that the work were better done crudely than 
not at all. A most grateful acknowledgment is made 
to the many authors, editors, publishers, and proprietors 
whose names appear, in connection with their several 
contributions, in the index and in the list at the end of 
the volume. 
JOHN VANCE CHENEY. 
San Francisco, 
December 29, 1891. 
