«r~» »« 
exuberant, whe +tiat in song the. 
SSfiSBFJS 
f ri tL U &ering“of “* own "espiial 
for the Withering true 
and occasional end. IW _w r d0 . 
of human song is - ■> w this ascr ibe 
-stheUc sense «-» 
oir^adv been ascribed to tnem 
rtose who maintain their song is purely 
86 iT the introduction to the hook the 
musician will find an interesting dissei^ 
tation upon the musical scale, botn 
human and ornithological. ‘‘The hmd is 
a minstrel, not a musician. . . . J&any 
of the Hew Zealand bird-songs may be 
vocalised—that is, the bird appears to 
say things—but more are pure loops 
of exquisite sound hung foi 
charmed moments in shadowy recesses 
and when a bird m a Beethoven rap 
ture sits quietly singing a .per ec 
theme with variations, from -u. mi ^ 
strel we hear the musician emerging. 
There is but one fault to and wit 
this book. Its whole get-up is exce*^ 
lent, reflecting the greatest credit on 
the publishers, especially the repioduc- 
tion of numerous and . unique photo¬ 
graphs. But its price is 25s, and, al¬ 
though it is cheap at that iu view of 
its contents, that is unfortunately a 
sum which will prevent the acquisition 
of the book by the many who would be 
charmed to possess what is undoubtedly 
the meat original contribution, to the 
literatus of N'W Zealand ormtholostv. 
7, of musical notation of the songs and 
calls of the Dominion’s birds, both 
native and imported, and admirably 
has he succeeded, although, to mention 
a small point, there may be some to 
disagree with his suggestion that in 
1 Xew Zealand it is practically impos¬ 
sible to distinguish between the song 
of the blackbird and that of the thrush. 
Surely it is a stroke of genius, allied 
with sly humour, that made Mr. An¬ 
dersen devote his closing chapter to 
the song of the cicada. To the Maori, 
it seems, the cicada, or tarakihi, is the 
sweetest singer of all the New Zealand 
song-birds. The extraordinary rhythm, 
with its unusual syncopation, of the ci¬ 
cada’s song has inspired the Maori 
to imitation with an extremely popular 
pastime-song and dance. 
SONG AND SEX. 
Why do birds sing at all? While 
not supplying a positive answer, Mr. j 
Andersen pours cold water on the sex¬ 
ual theory. Bird song, lie says, may be 
seen as a characteristic quite apart ! 
from sex, but upon w r hich on occasion 
sex seizes for its own end. ‘ ‘ Human 
song gives wide expression to the emo¬ 
tions of love, of praise, of joy, of good- 
fellowship. It would surely be too 
much to say that the source, of the 
whole is in the sexual emotion, the 
songs of ‘ worship and good-fellowship 
being merely secondary blossomings of 
the primary emotion; rather it would 
be nearer the truth to say that song 
is a natural expression of emotion, the 
