( 449 ) 



MISCELLANEOUS JOTTINGS ON BIRD SONGS. 

 By E. Leonard Gill. 



Those who for any purpose have had to estimate the relia- 

 bility of records sent in by different people — of such occurrences, 

 say, as the arrival of migrants — will have found that the field of 

 observation of many persons has curious limits. Many sports- 

 men are keen and accurate observers of game-birds and wild- 

 fowl, and yet know practically nothing of the other birds they 

 so constantly meet ; while people who have earned and de- 

 serve a reputation as good ornithologists on account of their wide 

 general acquaintance with birds and their eggs, are often quite 

 unable to recognize any but the most obvious of bird notes ; a 

 fact which at once discounts the value of their records of the 

 arrival of summer migrants. It is remarkable, for example, how 

 few people can distinguish the soDg of the Redstart ; and yet the 

 arrival of this bird in the spring is often made known by its song 

 for more than a week before a chance occurrence gives a glimpse 

 of the bird itself. The Lesser Whitethroat, again, is a bird 

 which, on account of its retiring habits, is very generally over- 

 looked, in spite of the fact that the loud notes at the end of its 

 song make its presence always easy to detect ; even in districts 

 — such as parts of Cheshire and the Plain of York — where the 

 Lesser Whitethroat is as common as the Sedge-Warbler, one is 

 often told that it is extremely scarce. Another note which few 

 people seem to know is the scrappy song of the Whinchat, a song 

 which may be compared to that of a Whitethroat borne to the 

 ear in a broken-up fashion on a gusty wind. 



The Wood- Wren's song is certainly more commonly recog- 

 nized, but in this case again it will often be found that people of 

 local repute as ornithologists do not know the note, and are thus 

 quite unable to judge of the bird's presence and numbers in any 

 particular district. It may be here worth while to mention the 

 extraordinary abundance of the Wood-Wren in Wales — at any 



