6 WOOD NOTES WILD. 
sound; and the most natural combination of tones in it 
is the common chord, consisting of three tones, one, three, 
and five, forming two intervals, a major third and a minor 
third, which together make a fifth. These three tones are 
more readily appreciated by the uneducated ear than the 
regular order of tones in the scale. Players on the old- 
fashioned keyless bugles could play them, with their 
octaves perhaps, and nothing else; and boys can play 
them on long dry milk-weed stalks. I have been sur- 
prised at the readiness with which dull-eared boys learn 
to tune the strings of a violin, which are the interval of 
a fifth apart, while they are slow to determine the inter- 
vening tones. One and five of the scale, then, have the 
strongest affinity, the one for the other, of any two tones 
in it. 
Now, after the “flight of ages,” when the birds had 
emerged from the state of monstrosity, each raw singer 
having chanted continuously his individual tonic, there 
came a time when they must take a long step forward 
and enter the world of song. In the vast multitude of 
feathered creatures there must have been an endless 
variety of forms and sizes, and a proportionate variety 
in the pitch and quality of their voices. Day to day, 
year to year, each bird had heard his fellows squall, 
squawk, screech, or scream their individual tones, till 
in due time he detected here and there in the tremen- 
dous chorus certain tones that had a special affinity for 
his own. This affinity, strengthened by endless repeti- 
tions, at last made an exchange of tones natural and easy. 
Suppose there were two leading performers, the key of 
