EARLY SPRING IN SAVERNAKE FOREST 231 



composed of several musical notes harmoniously 

 arranged, which may be heard distinctly a quarter 

 of a mile away. The good and far-reaching song 

 is rare, but some birds have a single very power- 

 ful and musical note, or short phrase, which they 

 repeat at regular intervals by way of song. If by 

 following up the sound one can get near enough 

 to the tree where the meeting is being held to 

 see what is going on, it is most interesting to 

 watch the vocalist, who is like a leader, and 

 who, perched quietly, continues to repeat that 

 one powerful, unchanging, measured sound in 

 the midst of a continuous concert of more or 

 less musical sounds from the other birds. 



What I should very much like to know is, 

 whether these powerful and peculiar notes, 

 phrases, and songs of the jay, which are clearly 

 not imitations of other species, are repeated year 

 after year by the birds in the same localities, or 

 are dropped for ever or forgotten at the end of 

 each season. It is hard for me to find this out, 

 because I do not as a rule revisit the same places 

 in spring, and on going to a new or a different 

 spot I find that the birds utter different sounds. 

 Again, the places where jays assemble in numbers 



