How to attract the birds; and other talks about bird neighbours
Neltje Blanchan
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, May 20, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ...to name the songster whose music is laboriously described on an enclosed sheet. Staff, added lines, clef, time, bars, notes, sharps, flats, naturals, rests, accents--all are as carefully set down as if the inquirer were copying an intricate Bach fugue; yet not once out of ten times can the bird be named correctly by its written song alone, no matter how well up in field practice the ornithologist may be: the quality is lacking, and that is the very essence of the song. Lacking that, some description of size, plumage, or habit must be mentioned to aid identification. CALL THE BIRDS TO YOU But catching bird music by ear is a different matter from writing it. 'Every farmer's boy knows that by crowing like his pet rooster he can make him reply, and that first one cock, then another, will echo the challenge, until every rooster in the neighborhood is set to flapping his wings and crow ing with all his might. Certain wild birds have simple songs so pure of tone, or so slowly delivered, or so sharply accented, that the merest novice who can whistle has little difficulty in imitating them well enough to deceive even the feathered singer himself into thinking that one of his kind is replying from the wood. One can "whistle up" silent birds, too, trying first one call, then another, to learn what bird is within hail; then, hearing a reply in the far distance, bring the minstrel nearer and nearer to investigate the freaky song--so like his own and yet so different 1--that curiosity must be satisfied by closer inspection, until he frequently gets near enough to photograph, if not to touch. No birds are more readily attracted than the. I" f-. friendly little chickadees, whose three very high, clear call-notes, once heard, are easily imitated. The quail on...