Zoological recreations / [William John Broderip].

  • William Broderip
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Zoological recreations / [William John Broderip]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which afterwards continues fixed, and is scarcely ever altered. When the bird is thus become perfect in his lesson, he is said to sing his song round, or in all its varieties of passages, which he connects together, and executes without a pause.” Barrington defines a bird’s song to be a succession of three or more different notes, which are continued without interruption during the same interval with a musical bar of four crotchets in an adagio movement, or whilst a pendulum swings four seconds. Now let us see what notes have been detected in the song. Observers have marked f natural in woodlarks ; a in thrushes; c falling to a commonly in the cuckoo ; a natural in common cocks; B flat in a very large cock ; n in some owls; b flat in others. Thus we have a, b flat, c, n, and f, to which Barrington adds G from his own observations on a nightingale which lived three years in a cage; and he confirms the remarks of the observer who furnished him with the list, and says he has frequently heard from the same bird c and f. To prove the precision of the pitch of these notes, the b flat of the spinnet by which he tried them was perfectly in tune with the great bell of St. Paul’s. E,then, is the only note wanting to complete the scale; but, as he says, the six other notes afford sufficient data for making some conjectures with regard to the key in which birds may be supposed to sing, as these intervals can only be found in the key of f with a sharp third, or that of g with a flat third; and he supposed it to be the plaintive flat third, that affecting tone which, in the simple ballad, or “ wild and sad” chorus, so comes home to our bosoms. “ Oft have I listened, and stood still, As it came softened up the hill, And deemed it the lament of men, Who languished for their native glen.” , Barrington pronounces in favour of the flat third, because he agrees vdth Lucretius, that man first learnt musical notes from birds, and because the cuckoo, whose “ plain song” has been most attended to, performs it in a flat third. He strengthens his argument by showing that most of our simple compositions—old melodies such as “ Morva Rhydland,” and ancient music generally —are almost always in a flat third. The music of the Turks and Chinese, he also adduces as having half of the airs in a minor third, which is “ adapted to simple movements such as may be expected in countries where music hath not been long cul- tivated.” It will appear, however, from the following observations collected by White, in his enchanting History of Selborne, that neither
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