APPENDIX. 115 
NEWNESS OF THE FIELD, — Contin. 
Ornithologen Gesellschaft), referring to the notations of 
Beckler (see Index, Beckler, D. H.), speaks with more 
reserve. In a note dated December, 1890, he supports, 
though somewhat indirectly, the opinion of our author ; 
namely, that the main body of a bird-song may be fairly 
represented by the notes of our scale. He would except 
the performances of the gray nightingale and of our 
mocking-bird, as Mr. Cheney excepts the performance of 
the bobolink. Dr. Golz says: — 
“A short time before the publication of Dr. Alfred Brehm’s 
work ‘Captive Birds’ (Gefangene Végel) a treatise by Beckler 
appeared in the ‘Gartenlaube,’ published by Keil at Leipsic. 
In this periodical that traveller and ornithologist attempted 
to reproduce or to express in notes of our musical scales the 
song of different birds, principally Indian birds, for instance 
the ‘Shana’ (Cophychus macrurus). I then pointed out that 
composers of high standing and opera-singers who themselves 
were bird-fanciers had endeavored in vain to render in notes 
of our musical scales the wonderful succession of tones of your 
mocking-bird (Zurdus polyglottus), This would only be pos- 
sible with very monotonous songs, —for instance, those of a 
finch (Fringilla coelebs) or a thrush (Turdus musicus), but not 
with the complicated strophes of our gray nightingale (Luscinia 
philomela), which vary from whole tones to halves and from 
thirds to fifths, — not to speak of those of your world-renowned 
mocking-bird. Among the latter there are, as a well-known 
fact, some monotonous and incompetent singers, which having 
been taken from their nests when very young, had been brought 
up without hearing the old birds sing. Unschooled singers, 
however, are for the most part virtuosi, master singers, and are 
not to be forced into notes of our system.” 
