8 WOOD NOTES WILD. 
they never so profuse, are not the sum and substance of 
bird-songs; and it is in the solid body of the song that 
we find the relationship to our own music. The songs of 
many of the birds may be detected as readily as the mel- 
odies of “Ortonville” and “Rock of Ages.” In passing, one 
morning last summer, I heard a chewink sing the first 
strain of the beautiful old conference-meeting tune last 
named. Though I have never heard any other chewink 
sing that strain, it was a chewink that sang then, afford- 
ing startling proof of the variation in the singing of the 
same birds, The chickadees sing a few long tones in the 
most deliberate manner; and nothing this side of heaven 
is purer. I do not refer to their chick-a-dee-dee-dee chat, 
though they sometimes connect that with their singing, 
The chickadee and the wood-pewee have the most devout — 
of all the shi I have heard. 
We all know how eee and 1 distinctly the little 
whistling, white-throated sparrow sings his song, and how 
the tiny black-throated green warbler sends out his few 
white notes of cheer from among the dark pines. 
Conjecture as we may concerning the growth and de- 
velopment of birds and bird-songs, we know that the 
birds now sing in a wonderful manner, using all the 
intervals of the major and minor scales in perfection of 
intonation, with a purity of voice and finish of execution, 
with an exquisiteness of melody, a magnetic and spiritual 
charm appurtenant to no other music on earth. The 
horse neighs, the bull bellows, the lion roars, the tiger 
