[ a6 5 3 
“ lour of the fieldfare j but the head is too large 
“ for the body ; and for that reafon fhe is called a 
« counfellor. She performs that with her voice, 
<{ which no inftrument can play, or voice can ling; 
“ and that is quarter-notes, her fong being compofed 
** of them, and every one a note higher than another.’’ 
Hift. Barb. p. 60. 
Ligon appears, from other parts of his work, to 
have been mufical ; but I fhould doubt much whe- 
ther he was quite fure of thefe quarter intervals, fo 
as to fpeak of them w.th precifion. 
Some paffages of the fong in a few kinds of birds 
correfpond with the intervals of our mufical fcale (of 
which the cuckowis a (hiking and known inftance) ; 
much the greater part, however, of fuch fong is 
not capable of mufical notations. 
This arifes from three caufes : the firft is, that the 
rapidity is often fo great, and it is alfo fo uncertain 
when they may flop, that we cannot reduce the 
paflages to form a mufical bar, in any time 
whatfoever. 
The fecond is, that the pitch of moft birds is 
confiderably higher * than the moft fhrill notes of 
thofe inftruments which contain even the greateft 
compafs. 
* Dr. Wallis is miftaken in part of what he fuppofes to be 
the caufe of ftidllnefs in the voice, “ Nam ut tubus, fxc trachea 
“ longior, & ftridtior, fonum efficit magis acutum.” Grammar, 
P- 3- 
The narrower the pipe is, the more (harp the pitch as he 
rightly obferves^ but the length of the tube hath juft the contrary 
effedh, becaufe players on the flute always infert a longer mid- 
dle-piece, when they want to make the inftrument more 
flat. 
1 have 
