Se aes 
J, L 2< 4 
SONGS OF AMERICAN) BIRDS. 
BY JOHN 
BURROUGHS. 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF BIRDS MOUNTED BY WILLIAM E. D. SCOTT. 
KR SUSPECT it requires a special 
gift of grace to enable one to 
hear the bird-songs; some new 
power must be added to the 
eg? as ; 
are My ear, or some obstruction re- 
me hecriesauee: «moved. There are not only 
= 3 oS Re 
scales upon our eyes so that 
we do not see; there are scales upon our 
ears so that we do not hear. A city wo- 
man who had spent much of her time in the 
country once asked a well-known ornithol- 
ogist to take her where she could hear the 
bluebird. «What, never heard the bluebird! » 
said he. «I have not,» said the woman. 
«Then you will never hear it,» said the bird- 
lover. That is, never hear it with that in- 
ward ear that gives beauty and meaning to 
the note. He could probably have taken her 
in a few minutes where she could have heard 
the call or warble of the bluebird; but it 
would have fallen upon unresponsive ears*- 
upon ears that were not sensitized by love 
for the birds or associations with them. Bird- 
songs are not music, properly speaking, but 
only suggestions of music. A great many 
people whose attention would be quickly 
arrested by the same volume of sound made 
by a musical instrument or by any artificial 
means never hear them at all. The sound 
of a boy’s penny whistle there in the grove 
or the meadow would separate itself more 
from the background of nature, and be a 
greater challenge to the ear, than is the 
' strain of the thrush or the song of the 
sparrow. There is something elusive, indefi- 
nite, neutral, about bird-songs that makes 
them strike obliquely, as it were, upon the 
ear; and we are very apt to missthem. They 
are a part of nature, and nature lies about 
us, entirely occupied with her own affairs, 
and quite regardless of our presence. Hence 
it is with bird-songs as it is with so many 
other things in nature—they are what we 
make them; the ear that hears them must be 
half creative. I am always disturbed when 
persons not especially observant of birds ask 
me to take them where they can hear some 
particular bird the song of which they have be- 
come interested in through a description of it 
in some book. As I listen with them I feel 
like apologizing for the bird: it has a bad 
cold, or has just heard some depressing news; 
it will not let itself out. The song seems so 
casual and minor when you make a dead set 
at it. [have taken persons to hear the hermit- 
thrush, and I have fancied that they were all 
the time saying to themselves, «Is that all?» 
But when one hears the bird in his walk, when 
the mind is attuned to simple things and is 
open and receptive, when expectation is not 
aroused and the song comes as a surprise out 
of the dusky silence of the woods, one feels 
that it merits all the fine things that can be 
said of it. 
As music, what is the little ditty of the 
first song-sparrow in spring, or the warble of 
the first robin, or the call of the first meadow- 
lark or highhole? Nothing. If we have no 
associations with these sounds they will mean 
very little to us. Their merit as musical per- 
formances is very slight. It is as signs of joy 
and love in nature, as heralds of spring, and 
the spirit of the woods and fields made audi- 
ble, that they appeal to us. The drumming 
of the woodpeckers and of the ruffed grouse 
give great pleasure to a countryman, though 
they have not the quality of real music. It 
is the same with the call of the migrating 
geese or the voice of any wild thing: our 
pleasure in them is entirely apart from any 
considerations of music. Why does the wild 
flower, as we chance upon it in the woods or 
bogs, give us more pleasure than the more 
elaborate flower of the garden or lawn? Be- 
cause it is a greater surprise, offers a greater 
contrast with its surroundings, and suggests 
a spirit in wild nature that seems to take 
thought of itself and to aspire to beautiful 
forms. 
The songs of caged birds are always disap- 
pointing, because then they have nothing but 
their musical qualities to recommend them 
to us. We have separated them from that 
which gives quality and meaning to their 
songs. One recalls Emerson’s lines: 
I thought the sparrow’s note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn on the alder bough; 
I brought him home, in his nest, at even; 
719 
