338 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



which has caused me much perplexity. Although early in my 

 investigations I found that my correspondents were practically 

 at one with regard to the names of the notes which they heard, 

 yet I found that when they wrote down the notes in musical 

 notation they were divided into two camps. One half placed the 

 notes exactly an octave higher than the other half; and whereas 

 I had always written down the average call as E on the bottom 

 line of the treble stave and the C next below it, by far the larger 

 half of my correspondents considered it to be E in the top space 

 of the treble stave and the C next below it. When, as happened 

 in one case, two fairly musical people on hearing the same bird 

 differed in their estimate to the extent of a whole octave, it was 

 clear that there was something peculiar about the sound. Not 

 caring to trust any longer to my own ears, which I believe to be 

 fairly accurate for ordinary purposes, I enlisted the services of 

 many of the most carefully trained musical ears of my acquaint- 

 ance, and asked the owners to let me know the pitch and interval 

 of every Cuckoo's call which they heard. My enquiries elicited 

 a large number of careful observations, for which I am most 

 grateful. One lady, a most accomplished violinist, compared 

 notes with her friends, and at once experienced the same diver- 

 gence of opinion. " I cannot tell why it is," she wrote, " but the 

 pitch seems to bother so many people. I have asked several, 

 and they all say the pitch is an octave higher than it is." 



The result of these further enquiries was to dispel any doubts 

 that had arisen in my mind as to the average call being the 

 E and C in the middle of the piano. Those who assigned this 

 position to the notes were in a considerable minority, but the 

 weight of evidence is enormously in their favour.* But the 

 question remains, why should there be any difference of opinion 

 as to the pitch ? I suspect that it is a question of harmonics. 

 Having no knowledge of acoustics, I can only suggest this as the 

 explanation, and leave those wiser than myself to test the accuracy 

 of the suggestion. 



It is a well-known fact that very few musical sounds consist 

 of one simple note ; they are composed of an assemblage of tones. 

 These tones " are always members of a regular series, forming 



* I once commenced a list of the notes assigned to the Cuckoo in musical 

 compositions, but soon came to the conclusion that no significance could be 

 attached to composers' views on the matter. 



