Bird vocalization

“ The vocal powers of the Mocking-Bird exceed, both in their imitative notes and in their natural song, those of any other species. Their voice is full, strong, and musical, and capable of an almost endless variation in modulation. ”

“ At one point a double sound is produced, or two sounds nearly at the same moment,—one low and guttural, the other on a higher key,—presently a half-dozen notes rush forth pell-mell, accompanied by a quick snapping of the mandibles; then a succession of loud, musical, explosive notes fall on the ear; and finally the bird, as if in a spasm of ecstasy, opens his mouth wide and utters a clear, rapturous trill as a sort of musical peroration. It is simply wonderful. At first the bird seems to control the song, but erelong the song seems to master the bird completely. ”

“ No bird of his size has more strength of voice; but his song, though loud, is modulated with such a sweet and flowing cadence, that it comes to the ear with all the mellowness of the softest warbling. ”

“ After a while they succeed in carrying the tune for a respectable little run, but sooner or later their voices will go all to pieces or slide up into a falsetto, making another pause necessary. By and by, however, after much practice, they gain perfect vocal control, and are able to sustain their songs for a long time without a mishap. When the voice of the rehearsing bird breaks, it apparently runs too high in the scale for the bird's register, just as the voice of a sixteen-year-old boy is apt to do, to his own confusion and the amusement of his friends. ”

“ As I have told you before, all birds have some note or sound that they use to attract attention or call their mates; but it is only those whose voices are so highly developed that they can make really continuous musical sounds, that are called song birds.
"The male is the only real singer in Birdland. Many females have pretty musical notes that they give when about the nest, and some scraps of song; one or two are quite good musicians, but the great chorus comes from the males. ”

“ There is no doubt that each sound uttered by a bird is in unison with some note in the chromatic scale of music, but the intervals between the tones of the same bird do not coincide with those of the human voice. It is quite evident that birds possess an acute sense and ready faculty for music, and many of them show great aptitude in imitating the sounds of musical instruments; some varieties of birds, such as the southern mocking-bird, the thrush, and others, imitate with great success the sounds of other birds. ”

“ So obviously is its object to hearten the female in her long and patient vigil that as soon as the young are hatched the male's voice breaks like that of other choristers to a guttural croak. It is said, indeed—though so cruel an experiment would not appeal to many—that if the nest be destroyed just as the young are hatched the bird recovers all his sweetness of voice and sings anew while another home is built. ”

“ To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is not confined to sweet sounds. The defiant scream of the hawk circling aloft, the wild whinney of the loon, the whooping of the crane, the booming of the bittern, the loud trumpeting of the migratory geese sounding down out of the midnight sky, or the wild crooning of the flocks of gulls—are much more welcome in certain moods than any and all mere bird-melodies, in keeping as they are with the shaggy and untamed features of ocean and woods, and suggesting something like Richard Wagner music in the ornithological orchestra. ”

“ When the bird swallows food or drink, this little flap shuts down, and prevents the entrance of any clogging substance into the windpipe to choke the feathered diner.
We have now come to the most strategic point in our investigation of the anatomy of bird song, for in the avian world a special distinction has been conferred upon that little orifice in the bird's throat called the glottis. It is here that all the music, as well as all other so-called vocal sounds, are generated—they are simply piped or fluted through a slit, so that birds are whistlers, not singers or vocalists. ”

“ Lastly, in the season of pairing, when the male and female entice and pursue each other, from the top of a tree to its base, and thence again to the top, a gentle subdued warbling is all that is heard.
Nature has granted these tones to both sexes; but the male is particularly endowed with so very striking a musical talent, that in this respect he surpasses all birds, and has acquired the name of the king of songsters. The strength of his vocal organ is indeed wonderful; and it has been found that the muscles of his larynx are much more powerful than those of any other bird. ”

“ This single note, the only call he has besides a few squeaks, is far from a song; farther still is the empty-barrel-bung-hole sound made by the air in the rushing wings as the bird swoops in his fall. The night-hawk, alias "bull-bat," does not sing. What a name bull-bat would be for a singing bird! But a "voice" was never intended for the creature. Voice, beak, legs, head—everything but wings and maw was sacrificed for a mouth. What a mouth! The bird can almost swallow himself. Such a cleft in the head could never mean a song; it could never be utilized for anything but a fly-trap. ”

“ There is a constant clang and scream, an eternal harsh music—harmony in discord—through and above which, dominating it as an organ does lesser instruments—or like "that deep and dreadful organ-pipe, the thunder"—there rolls, at intervals, one of the most extraordinary voices, surely, that ever issued from the throat of a bird: a rolling, rumbling volume of sound, so rough and deep, yet so full, grand, and sonorous, that it seems as though the very cliffs were speaking—ending sometimes in something like a gruff laugh, or, as some will have it, a bark. ”

“ I am confident this bird refrains from singing when others are the most vocal, from the pleasure he feels in listening either to his own notes, or to the melodious responses which others of his own kindred repeat in different parts of the wood. ”

“ There are plenty of good imitators amongst our native species, and the power of imitation is not the exclusive property of those which have reached a high degree of vocal development, nor, for the matter of that, of song-birds at all. Even the Jay, than which few birds have a more raucous voice, that "hoots" like the Wood-Owl, or copies the sounds produced by the tail feathers of the Snipe, will occasionally imitate the most melodious strains of some other species ”

“ There is nothing in a bird's ways that we like so well as his singing. And in all the many species of birds in the world, no two sing exactly alike, so far as I can find out. You may always know a bird by his song. A robin does not sing like a thrush or a catbird. ”

“ As soon as the young are hatched, they begin to learn his voice and grow accustomed to it, and when they fly from the nest they are prevented by the sound of it from wandering and getting bewildered. If they happen to fly beyond certain bounds, the song of the male parent warns them of their distance, and causes them to turn and draw near the place from which it seems to issue. Thus the song of the male bird, always uttered within a certain circumference, of which the nest is the centre, becomes a kind of sentinel voice, to keep the young birds within prudent limits. ”

“ But the male bird also sings to entertain his mate during the arduous nest-building and hatching, to cheer the young and, if he be a domesticated bird, to give pleasure to his lord and the Providence that takes care of him, and in doing so to please himself. Lastly, the bird sings—by habit, as we call it—because the tendency is innate in the organs of song to exercise themselves." In other words, animals have the apparatus for making noises provided them in their organs of breathing, and because they have them they use them and are delighted with them, each in his own kind. ”

“ Did we require further proof, we have but to recollect that the song-bird is most alert with the music of its voice when its affections and interests are awakened by its mate during the time of rearing its young." It is, indeed, principally during the breeding-season that the singing power of birds is in full activity; and seeing that in general it is only the male that possesses the musical faculty, we may naturally suppose that its exercise is intended for the solace and amusement of his mate during her confinement to her nest. ”

“ No doubt vocal display also plays a large part in the courtship of birds. Nothing else in the early spring can wholly account for the wonderful musical tournaments that one hears lilting so lavishly on the air. Many a damsel, doubtless, listens to the numerous vocalists of her neighborhood, and then chooses the suitor whose voice possesses the finest qualities, or whose madrigals have the truest ring. How many things may combine to determine the choice of the parties, it would be difficult to say. Perhaps some birds are handsomer than others in the eyes of those that are looking for mates ”

“ The resemblance in a bird's song to human speech is entirely due to the human-like quality in the voice; for we find that other songsters—notably the swallow—have a charm similar to that of the willow wren, although [Pg_124] the notes of the former bird are differently arranged, and do not form anything like a cadence. Again, take the case of the blackbird. We are accustomed to describe the blackbird's voice as flute-like, and the flute is one of the instruments which most nearly resemble the human voice. ”

“ It has been remarked by more observers than one, that a bird's song has not only a character commons to the species, but that individual birds may often be distinguished for superior variety, power, and fulness in their notes; there being as much difference in the execution of birds of the same species, as between human voices singing the same air. ”

“ The diversity of the sounds, both vocal and instrumental, made by the males of many birds during the breeding-season, and the diversity of the means for producing such sounds, are highly remarkable. We thus gain a high idea of their importance for sexual purposes, and are reminded of the conclusion arrived at as to insects. It is not difficult to imagine the steps by which the notes of a bird, primarily used as a mere call or for some other purpose, might have been improved into a melodious love song. ”

“ On more than one occasion more than one bird occupied the door-step at the same time, all the while apparently trying to drown each others' voices in a continuous flow of song. At such times the delightful mellowness which one hears, with the birds in the distance, gives place to an almost painful, penetrating shrillness. The more deliberately uttered song is invariably preceded by a strongly guttural sound not unlike that produced by striking an inflated rubber bag. ”

“ Just as in the dull plumage of female pheasants and other birds, the males of which are splendidly adorned, or in both the sexes of some species belonging to the same families, we see the early state of their common, plain progenitors, so, in song-birds, the uninspired, workaday voice of call-note or twitter—the spoken language, as one may call it—probably represents the humble roots from which the various trees of song, with all their diversified branchings, and fluttering, trembling leaves, have shot up, beautifully, into the sky. ”

“ Some bad voices in artificial breeds, i.e., those which, like the Brahma and Cochin, diverge most widely from the original type--are perhaps incurable, like the carrion crow's voice; for that bird will probably always caw harshly in spite of the musical throat which anatomists find in it. We can only listen to our birds, and begin experimenting with those already possessed of shapely notes and voices of good quality. ”

“ All birds have alarm cries, and a call-note that serves the same purpose as a song, although it may not seem at all musical to us. We are naturally more interested in that order of birds whose voices are the most perfectly developed. These not only sing when they are courting, but all the time their mates are sitting upon the eggs, and until the young are ready to fly. ”

“ Up it goes through the branches of the trees, leaping from limb to limb, faster and faster, till it shoots from the tree-tops fifty or more feet into the air above them, and bursts into an ecstasy of song, rapid, ringing, lyrical; no more like its habitual performance than a match is like a rocket; brief but thrilling; emphatic but musical. Having reached its climax of flight and song, the bird closes its wings and drops nearly perpendicularly downward like the skylark. If its song were more prolonged, it would rival the song of that famous bird. ”

“ Then he slowly raises the wooden cage to his face, and whistles low to the brown bird, which had hitherto sat silent on its perch.
The bird extends its slender body, lifts its head, and emits two or three penetrating chirps, which make themselves audible amidst the murmur and stir of the room. Then it fills its little lungs, its soft chest expands, and it bursts into song.
Ah, what a song was that! But who can describe the singing of a bird? The voice of nature's heart, thrillingly pure and passionate as in the dawn of time, before man sinned ”

“ Beautiful as these tones are, they do not, any more than those of other birds, include every excellence, and that particular one which they lack, being common to so many of our songsters, has come to be something which one loves and listens for, whenever bird sings upon bough. Partly because of this, perhaps, and partly because of the very pre-eminence of the nightingale as a singer, I have sometimes missed these franker, woodland-wilder strains whilst listening to its song, in a way in which I have never missed its own more dulcet notes from the song of lark or thrush. ”