152 WOOD NOTES WILD. 
WHITE-THROATED SPARROW. — Contin. 
report that the birds sing out of tune: “The B in the last 
form was often sung most outrageously flat.” — Goodwin, 
W. L.: Music in Nature. (Nature, vol. xxxvii., 1887-88, pp. 151-152.) 
A. G. Wilkinson heard what he took for the white- 
throat’s singing on the Dartmouth River. ‘“ Between each 
double bar is a single song. Numbers 1 and 2 are 
different songs of one bird, and Numbers 3 and 4 are songs 
of another bird”: — 
Andante. 
(In Mayer, A. M., ed.: Sport with Gun and Rod, p. 436.) 
“There is one other bird worthy of distinction from a similar quality of 
music. I refer to the white-throated sparrow. I give their song, like 
the thrush’s, a simple melody, and yet, like the thrush’s, true to the 
human scale, and of course true to the law of harmony. I awoke, one 
morning, five thousand feet above tide-water, to a concert of these birds, 
such as no man ever heard at a lower elevation, and such as I never ex- 
pect to hear repeated. There seemed to be half a dozen within a stone’s 
throw, and all pouring out their welcome to the new day. But mind you 
this fact, it was a solo concert; as each in turn uttered its simple melody, 
not one infringed on the time of another or gave a note except in regular 
succession. I marked four distinct variations in their song, which I give, 
and which you will see are all common chords of the human scale:” — 
fa” a. 
— —— —- a 
et } — ee ee 
a t+ ot an 
(Horsford, B., in a letter to the Editor, dated October, 1890.) 
See Burroughs, J.: Wake-robin, p. 87. 
