NATURE STUDY. 
PUBUSHKD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 
Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences. 
Vol. II. June, 1901 . No. 1. 
Some Sparrow Songs. 
BY FREDERICK W. BATCHEEDER. 
The young student of bird life is usually possessed of 
the sweet delusion that all birds of the same species sing 
alike. There could be nothing farther from the truth, as 
he will very soon discover. The variations from the typi¬ 
cal song in the case of such a common species as the song 
sparrow are almost infinite. It takes months, perhaps 
years, of observation to enable one to recognize this well- 
known bird by the song alone. I shall confess that even 
to this day I am occasionally thrown off the track by the 
little rascal’s tricks of vocalization, and am not always cer¬ 
tain of his identity until I have seen him sing. 
It would be useless to attempt the transcription of the 
song sparrow’s whole performance, even the typical one, 
in our clumsy notation. Very few birds sing according to 
our scale, except by accident. As to the song sparrow, 
his song consists of a pretty definite prelude of a few notes, 
followed by a very indefinite succession of notes forming 
what, for want of a better name, we call a “roulade. ’ ’ This 
is defined by Moore, in Webster’s Dictionary, as “a pas¬ 
sage of running tones ; especially a running flight of notes 
.01, 
