Jan., 1902. 1 
THE CONDOR 
13 
that time that I took to inquiring into 
the necessity of birds songs. If they 
were of no importance to them, as I had 
hitherto supposed them to be, why did 
they use them at all? 
This course of reasoning was interest- 
ing and opened up a new line of inves- 
tigation. It was only then that I began 
to get a faint idea of the true depth of 
the subject. Bird songs were not use- 
less. They were the outcome of innum- 
erable avian needs and necessities and 
for untold generations of birds’ lives 
they had been used by them as a means 
of communication, advancement and 
protection. In short their twitterings 
and murmurings, so meaningless and 
disconnected to us. are to all intents and 
purposes a language, that conveys to 
the birds in a crude form a great deal of 
very useful information. I do not mean 
to say they have a language or even 
an approach to one, but the system of 
notes that each species uses is a means 
whereby anv member of a flock can 
convjy to the rest of the flock any one 
of quite a number of ideas. 
Besides this while the notes of one 
species are most thoroughly familiar to 
that species, still other kinds of birds, 
specifically and even generically diflPer- 
ent, do at times take advantage of each 
others notes, especially when there is 
trouble around. The most prominent 
instances of this sort that have come to 
mv attention relate to California jays 
(^Apheloconia californica.) The minute 
they discover any two or four-legged 
foe in their domain, they raise their 
voices in protest, first one, then another 
joining in the chorus and various other 
birds of different species and genera, 
such as the usual run of woodland seed- 
eaters, are on the alert at once and re- 
main so until all danger is over. 
The idea of birds having even a sub- 
stitute for a language will seem rather 
far-fetched to a great many people and 
this, I remember, was my first impres- 
sion of it, so in order to make sure of it 
I began by memorizing the notes of the 
commonest species of birds, at the same 
time noting everything I could in regard 
to each kind of note, as for instance, the 
occasion of its use; the effects of its 
use on other birds (of its own species 
in particular) and also what notes, if 
any. the other birds gave in reply. 
This was not as easy as it seemed to be, 
for at the outset I found it was very 
hard for a beginner to imitate accurate- 
ly, mentally or orally, even the common- 
est bird notes, as the note syllables are 
not always as defined and distinct as 
they might be and it takes a long time 
to get accustomed to this peculiarity. 
However by frequent repetition of a 
note OUT LOUD, while the bird was ut- 
tering it, I partially overcome this diffi- 
culty. 
As an illustration, take the call note 
of the red-shafted flicker cafer 
collaris), one of the most wide-spread 
birds of the state. Some people call the 
note “chee up” or even “cheer up”; 
others call it variously “ye up,” “kee 
yik” or “kyee ^mk.” At times it sounds 
like one, then like another of these imi- 
tations, so that it would take an expert’s 
opinion to decide which it is. By mem- 
orizing the commonest notes of several 
species of birds, together with keeping 
a record of the conditions under which 
they were used, I soon became able to 
multiply observations on each kind of 
note and the conditions of its use, and 
in this way could readily compare the 
notes and their respective causes and 
effects, in many ca.ses, a number of times 
over, only to find that each kind of note 
caused its own particular effect on the 
other members of a flock of the same 
spe cies, showing that birds of the same 
species had a pretty thorough under- 
standing of their own notes. 
In quite a good many cases though i 
could not make these comparisons for I 
only diml}" understood the cause of the 
note or notes used, so I continued the 
study by taking up each note in detail, 
considering chiefly its cause and effect. 
While doing this I gradually distin- 
guished quite a difference between com- 
mon and special notes, and as it seemed 
