Field book of wild birds and their music; a description of the character and music of birds, intended to assist in the identification of species common in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains

Front matter

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PUTNAW’S NATURE FIELD BOOKS

Introduction To The Revised And Enlarged Edition

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star

In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, .

Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,

How silently! .

. sing ye meadow streams with gladsome voice! Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

When in the lapse of a number of years an accumulation of knowledge and experience has enlarged or modified one’s mental vision, it is well if the advance goes on record.

Now, although my estimate of the character and significance of bird music has undergone little material change during a period of seventeen years, it has grown proportionately with those years, and I have added in this new edition the results of my latest study. It is not necessary to apologize for the insistence upon the value of musical notation expressed in my Introduction to Bird Music, there is no avoiding the facts stated therein, nor any cause to enlarge on them; but there is something to be added in relation to the musical scales of the birds, and in appreciation of the musical record and its popular as well as scientific usefulness.

When one attains the commanding summit of a high mountain the horizon is greatly enlarged. If one remains in the valley and mountain walls shut one in on every side, the world indeed seems small. Coleridge soared upward lke the lark when he wrote the lines quoted above. With

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INTRODUCTION, greatly enlarged vision he has epitomized the music of Nature as that must appeal to all of us else it cannot appeal at all. The mountain reveals the boundless horizon of a different world of which we have scarcely dreamed or thought, a world to which the little bird on viewless wing has ever sung, shall ever sing. His music is his language, for us it is interpretative of life’s experience; it is not a thing which we may cast aside as a child would discard his toy when it ceases to amuse.

Hence, I believe the birds with their music are the revela-

tion of a greater world, one with just such a boundless horizon as that which we view from the mountain’s summit marvelling that it is indeed the same narrow world we live in.

It is not possible to listen to the melody of the Song Sparrow in early March without realizing for the time being that we are released from the cold clutch of winter and set down in the comfortable lap of spring. What matters it if the squalling interruptions of the Blue Jay disturb that delightful impression. A discordant note somewhere is a phase of life; not all the singers are divine, in fact, the world of music if it is true to life must record a due proportion of flippant jest, idle chatter, squawking disagreement, rag-time frivolity, mooning transcendentalism, and so on. A world of singing birds devoid of humor would be extremely dull; without something plainly, humanly nonsensical in it now and then it must be insufferably tedious. One would not dare to assume that naught of innocent jollity entered into the life of the bird.

But of serene, exultant melody in the music of the birds there is plenty; the plainest evidence of it is in the songs of the Thrushes, and we have the convincing proof that their music is built upon definite, primitive scales—scales which the birds used zons of years before man did. This book is not the proper medium in which to set forth evolutionary theories of bird-song, but I must emphatically repeat that the bird sings first for love of music, and second for love of the lady. I am not alone in my theory of the inherent musical nature of song-birds, for Mr. Chauncey J. Hawkins writes in The Auk: ‘‘There must be something within the vi

Introduction

bird himself which causes him to sing though there is no ear to listen,’ and further, the writer advises his reader to “seek the cause of song in the internal life of the bird rather than in external causes.’’*

The addition of many birds to the original group included in this book was a much needed one. Although a number of the species are rather uncommon, one is likely to be surprised by the appearance of a rare individual at any time in some most unexpected place; that has been my own experience, and several of the song-records, notably those of the Lincoln Sparrow, the inimitable little Winter Wren, and the Tennessee Warbler, were quite accidental acquisitions; indeed, a considerable number of the notations contained here were such, but I believe they may at least claim the credit of ‘‘a first appearance.”” Whether they are useful for the purpose of identifying the birds is another matter— one which I must leave for the reader to decide. It is sufficient for me to point out that I recognized the song of the Veery for the first time in the winter of 1884 upon reading a notation of it in an article on Bird Music by Simeon Pease Cheney which appeared in the Century Magazine at that time. Thirty-one years later, on a certain occasion I requested a Boston musician to go to the piano, run his fingers in a particular way over a progression of minor thirds ascending within the diminished seventh and he would have the equivalent of the song of Swainson’s Thrush; he did so and instantly reproduced the notes of the musical record found on page 253. He did not see nor did he need to see the written music, the verbal description was enough. At the same time, for those who do not read or understand music I have not hesitated to introduce within these pages every possible means aside from music which may promise help in the identification of bird-song. Therefore, on this same page 253, there is a suggestive scalloped line accompanied by Bradford Torrey’s syllabic form which also represents the music of Swainson’s Thrush.

Even if there were but one among a dozen of my considerate readers who could read a musical record, that would discount its ultimate value in no respect if it were truthful,

* Vide The Auk, October, 1918, vol. xxxv., No. 4:p. 421.

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INTRODUCTION.

for, in such form the song is in a state of scientific preservation, which is more than may be said of a lack of musical knowledge! The time has already come when most of the advanced school children of Boston and New York can tell us exactly the difference between the chromatic and diatonic scales. A piano and a Canary may not be unmixed blessings in the house, but no one has yet ventured to suggest the home is blessed which boasts nor bird nor music!

The correction of errors in text and music which must inevitably enter a book of this kind in spite of the greatest vigilance cannot always be successfully accomplished by one pair of eyes. In this connection I am greatly indebted to Mr. Henry L. Mason of Boston for his valuable suggestions and kindly interest in the work. It should also be borne in mind that for one who has always lived both in town and country in an atmosphere of music, the many allusions to musical parallelism within these pages are believed to be as interesting and useful to others as to himself; and again, with respect to musical pitch, a vitally important point in the transcription of bird-music, it should be explained that a musical mind is adept in carrying the key of C without assistance of instrument or pitch pipe. If it were not so the significant T’wice or Thrice Sva. which appears over my notations would not be so constantly employed. In certain cases—for example, the Warblers and the Cuckoos—musical pitch is an indubitable indication of the species!

It should not be necessary for me to add that the piano arrangements here are meant solely to demonstrate the musical content of the bird’s song. Bird-notes can scarcely be recognized with the assistance of the piano. If one desires a tonal imitation of the song it must be whistled in accordance with its notation and in exact pitch, no other way will answer.

F. ScHuyLeER MATHEWS.

Cambridge, Mass.

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Preface

Undoubtedly the thing we love and cherish wmost about the little wild-wood singer is his song. The music from the Robin sitting alone and apparently eheerless on the bare branch of the elm beside the road is at least a most welcome message with the true ring of springtime about it, even though the meadow is bare of any green thing, and the sky too dull and gray to suggest the advent of the gentler season. The calendar saysit is March, but as far as appearances go it might just as well be grim November—except for the presence of the Robin. But fortunately appearances are discounted in a country where the poet has most aggravatingly sung:

‘‘The spring comes slowly up this way.”

As though we did not know that without being told as much in verse! The factis, it really does not come at all as the poets would have it, either early or late. That familiar line of the old English poet,

“Come, gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come” 3;

is entirely unrelated to the order of things in the northern United States ; here our spring is mostly made up of sentiment connected with extended lists of singing birds and of hurriedly blooming wild flowers; all the rest is weather—and plenty of it! January thaws, February snow-flurries, March gales, July heat, December frosts, August thunder-showers, and November skies! Allis out of order except the birds; they come in regular procession, and sing, day in and day out, in spite of the weather and apparently without a thought of the preposterous disagreements of the climate and the weather bureau!

But the songs, what of them! why is the singer recorded in all the books, but never—or hardly ever—his song? Well, the question is a difficult one to answer without finding fault with some one, so it would be best +g make this little volume furnish the response. Here

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PREFACE.

it is, last from the publisher, but first from birds which have sung in the field and on the hillside for the past five years. Whose are the songs,mine? No, lam only the reporter who has listened attentively for a score of vernal seasons to the little feathered musicians of Nature’s great orchestra. The volume is literally a fieldbook filled with the musical sayings of American birds; I have taken no liberties with the scores, except to make a doubtful A or B no longer doubtful. Allisa literal transcription, not without certain puzzling phases, of course ; for who of us have never been bothered by the rapid performances of expert musicians! Naturally, therefore, some of my records are imperfect; indeed, it is safe to add that some singers sang a great deal more than I was able to put down on paper. I trust, however, that no bird lover will be disturbed by the remarkable records coming from the more talented songsters when he hears what they have done through the interposition of the pianist. If he should doubt my record I would be pleased to introduce him to my bird (or perhaps some other one just as talented) in the field opposite my studio, or on the mountain-side behind it, in the wilds of New Hampshire.

To those kind friends who have greatly assisted me by advice and service in the planning of this work Iam glad to extend grateful acknowledgments. Mr. William Brewster has permitted me to sketch in water-color from specimens in his museum. Mr. Walter Deane has been generous in advice. Mr. Frank Chapman has given me ample facilities to sketch from specimens in the New York Museum of Natural History. Messrs. Lee and Shepard have kindly presented me with a copy of Mr. Cheney’s Wood Notes Wild, and granted per. mission to quote therefrom. Messrs. Houghton and Mifflin have allowed me to quote from those admirable little volumes of that charming writer and true naturelover, Mr. Bradford Torrey.* Messrs. Ginn and Company

* Mr. Torrey, above all other authors, has succeeded in succinctly describing the musical rhythm of the bird’s song, and has also used practical musical definitions. His writings are of inestimable value to one who pursues the study of bird music.

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PREFACE.

have permitted me to quote from William S. Long’s School of the Woods. Also, from the books of Mr. Frank Chapman and Mr. W. E. D. Scott, as well as from the pamphlets of Mr. Ned Dearborn, and Mr. F. E. L, Beal, I have been glad to cull valuable opinions and certain ornithological statistics of indispensable interest,

I have endeavored to paint the little songster in hig true colors, and show him in some one of his characteristic positions, flying or singing. Some of my water. colors are satisfactorily interpreted by the three-color process, and others are not. One must not judge of the color of the bird altogether by his picture. The wonder is, that with limited red, yellow, and blue the platemaker and printer so nearly approached the model. The pictures of the four Thrushes are well preserved, so are those of the Meadowlark, the Cuckoos, the Purple Finch, the Goldfinch, the Indigo Bunting, and the Red-winged Blackbird. Suffice it to say that when the artist gives the printer absolutely nothing but purity and delicacy of color to copy, he imposes upon him a task of no little difficulty,—a difficulty for which due allowance should be made in an appreciation of the result.

I do not use such color-terms as rufous, vinaceous, fuscous, and the like, when describing the bird’s colors, as it is doubtful whether anybody knows what they mean. Imagine yourself telling the painter to paint your house fuscous, or directing the dress-maker to line your garment with vinaceous! Presumably the ornithologist and the botanist prefer to use a universal language; it has its advantages, so we will forgive them. Yet it would hit a scientist very hard, I suppose, to suggest that he was very unscientific outside of his profession—and a trifle medieval! Otherwise, why does he call crimson, purple! In the matter of color and music, therefore, we will be scientific, and when the bird is crimson we will nof call him purple, but crimson, and when he sings G sharp we will not hunt around ior a syllable to represent it, but put it on the musical staff where it belongs!

F, SCHUYLER MATHEWS.

Boston.

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