A New White-throat Song. — Last summer it was my good fortune to 
hear a charming song from a White-throated Sparrow, which, so far as I 
am aware, has never before been published. In the woods of Thornton, 
N. H., the notes of Zonotrichia albicollis are among the most character- 
istic sounds in the early summer, growing less frequent toward the end 
of July, and ceasing altogether early in August. The normal song, as I 
have heard it there, is as follows : 

r ZjLtPi> 
0 — r— 
0 
- — i — 
- - 
. mil 
t~ 8 
— 
(The exact pitch of this and my other notations I have no means of deter- 
mining, and have therefore put them into the key of G, following therein 
similar notations observed by Mr. Henry Oldys of Washington, who has 
■ kindly furnished me with a number of interesting White-throat songs.) 
On the 24th of July, 1906, about noon, my attention was attracted by 
the following fragment of a song from a White-throat : 
A few minutes later I heard the same song in its complete form, as fol- 
lows: 
=E= t— li. r =£ 
m 
This song, unusually sweet and plaintive, was constantly repeated, and 
was occasionally answered from the neighborhood woods by the song 
which I have indicated as the normal White-throat song in that locality. 
There are two rather unusual features in this song: first, its descend- 
ing character, and, secondly, the fact that its last notes are in groups of 
4 instead of 3. Both of these features have been noted by Mr. Oldys, 
but never combined in precisely the same form as that which I secured. 
For example, he notes the following song which has the same descending 
character as mine, but differs from it in having triplets instead of quadru- 
plets at the end: 
nil -f~' 
-f . 
0 • ... 
A— 
t 
P 
t=-t t — t -v- f t 
-t'-t I 
Again, he secured a song containing 4-note groups at the end, but differ- 
ing from mine at the beginning, thus: 
From these and other similar examples, the diversity ot form which the 
White-throated Sparrow’s song assumes is apparent, and the melody 
which I chanced to secure is merely one of a great variety of songs with 
which the woods are doubtless constantly echoing, but which pass unno- 
ticed until some tramper happens to catch the air and preserve it. — Alfred 
Dame, Worcester Academy, Worcester, Mass. 
Aox, XXIV, J c ,a. , 190 7 , p ./ox-i*?. 
M 
