SONGS OF THK TRUK THRUSHKS. 
29 
To my ear it is tlie most delicate and refined of all thrush 
songs I have yet heard. In the distance one is reminded 
of the first phrase of Handel’s song, “OhadI Jubal’s lyre.” 
At short range a succession of trills and turns is revealed, 
something like this : 
tr ~ 
^—n 
Olive- A- 
. J to. y 
^ x v ^ pT'fNr rjz - 
1 1 in d 
□aciv. Ivjy 
& 
v L 
^■ 
All of the thrush songs are given with a self-contained 
deliberation which is admirable and contrasts strongly with 
the hurried, restless phrases of the more common singers. 
I11 pitch they vary greatly, ranging from one octave higher 
than that indicated by the notes in the above transcriptions 
to two octaves higher. 
I11 quality they far excel all other bird songs and may 
be truly pronounced the finest music on earth. 
Toadstool Signatures. 
BY AKBKRT K. CKOUGH. 
The toadstool is a plant attractive by its weird and un¬ 
usual habits of growth and by its almost endless variety of 
form and color. It is hardly strange that a mass of legend 
and superstition has attached to it the world over. Its 
sudden and prolific occurrence and equally sudden and 
mysterious disappearance seem like the result of botanical 
conjuring rather than the orderly processes of Nature. 
We know, of course, that the toadstools as we see them 
are the fruit of a minute and generally unnoticed plant 
which grows underground or in the substance of decaying 
wood or other organic matter. This fungous plant is almost 
microscopic except when seen en masse, when it appears 
like a white, cottony cobweb spreading through the earth, 
where it is obtaining the nutriment which is to appear in 
