114 WOOD NOTES WILD. 
NEWNESS OF THE FIELD. — Contin. 
my undertaking. Poor Audubon! all through his big 
book he laments his inability to describe the songs o/ 
the charming birds. Flagg has given a few specimens. 
He thinks there can be no more of their songs copied. 
Audubon was a wonder, but Wilson is, to my mind, the 
most charming of the writers on the birds. The two men 
were at work at the same time, and were well along with 
their great undertakings before they knew anything of 
each other. So it is; one can hardly have a new thought 
all to himself. If I had started this bird music twenty. 
five years back, I should have been all alone; I don’t lack 
much of it now.” — G., S. P., in a letter dated February, 1886. 
Dr. Golz, formerly First President of the German 
General Ornithological Society (Allgemeine Deutsche 
1 There are those who think that none of the bird-songs can be 
copied : — 
“ As I have some musical knowledge, and have given some attention 
to the music of birds’ songs, it may be worth while to add one or twc 
remarks on a subject which is as difficult as it is pleasing. I need hardly 
say that birds do not sing in our musical scale. Attempts to represent 
their song by our notation, as is done, for example, in Mr. Harting’s 
‘Birds of Middlesex,’ are almost always misleading. Birds are guided 
in their song by no regular succession of intervals; in other words. 
they use no scale at all. Their music is of a totally different kind tc 
ours.” — Fowler, W. W.: A Year with the Birds, p. 257. London, 1889. 
“ Having been myself musical from my very cradle, and having made 
long and frequent observations of the songs of birds, I have come to the 
decided conclusion that the natural songs of English birds (the only birds 
with which in a state of nature I am acquainted) are never capable of 
musical notation, — are never, in fact, in tune with our musical scale. 
People may be startled by such an assertion, which is, in other words. 
that all birds sing out of tune.” —R., M. H.: Songs of Birds. Notes ana 
Queries, 3d ser. vol. xii,, Aug. 3, 1867. (See Index ; Pole, W.) 
