12 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
toneless notes, to which the voice breaks from the song. It is 
suggestive of what would be heard if one of our rich basses con- 
cluded every phrase by jodelling hysterically, like a Swiss. The 
same incident is very noticeable in the Mistle Thrush, whose very 
brief snatches of full-toned song (consisting of from two to four 
or five notes) are followed by a few high discordant sounds. In 
the Common Thrush this break hardly ever occurs as distinctly 
as in the Blackbird; but, whereas in the Blackbird the sounds 
are never given except after the full notes, in the Thrush they 
may constitute the entirety of several successive phrases; and 
this is especially the case when two Thrushes are about to fight. 
In the Nightingale the terminal break in the voice is reduced 
to an occasional very brief high note. Bechstein observed this, 
and has carefully rendered it in a very good syllabification of the 
bird’s song, from which the following is an extract :— 
** Tro, tro, tio tin. 
Tzu, tzu, teu tzt. 
Dzorre, dzorre, hi.” 
This little final note is never repeated or prolonged. 
The Blackcap has distinct ‘falsetto’ notes, which precede . 
the full notes and never follow them. I have heard the Blackcap 
in September uttering a little song of the false notes, without 
any of the usual full notes. | 
The Lesser Whitethroat, like the Blackcap, commences its 
song with harsh notes; and the succeeding full tones, lacking 
the variety of the Blackcap’s warble, are given at one pitch, and 
form a strain like that of the Cirl Bunting, but more musical. 
In the Willow Wren there is a rapid succession of high notes 
at the beginning of the song, quite distinct from the immediately 
succeeding sweet full tones. The initial notes are given at about 
the same pitch. There is never one of these false or harsh notes 
at the end of the song. 
The Robin and Starling seem not to revert to infantile cries 
in song, except that the former, in August and September, makes 
great use of the call-note and of the “ distress-note,” and some- 
times forms brief phrases of these cries only. In September the 
young Thrushes twitter a good deal, but even at this season they 
sometimes utter full notes. In mid-September last I heard three 
Thrushes, near EKltham, singing a few very full notes. Similarly, 
