Evening star., 1933-06-26

Musically inclined persons can do no
better than to study thrush music at
this time Of the year.
Just why birds come at all to resi-
dence neighborhoods, either suburban or
city, when they have the 1882 acres of
Rock Creek Park at their disposal is a
matter for conjecture:
Our guess is that a tree is tree,
to bird, it makes no difference where
located.
When bird sees tree, it sees some
thing just as familiar to it as chair
to civilized human being.
The sailing bird sits down.
This is fortunate. for without this
habit, this familiarity, on the part OF
our feathered friends, we should have
to go to the woods to listen to their
songs.
Thrushes have been singing for two
months, but only the other day there
arrived a new type of thrush singer
Since we have never seen him, we
cannot describe him, except by his
music.
He is far louder, in the first place,
than any other thrush it has been our
privilege to hear during the past three
Summers. His song has more Varia-
tions and twists in it. 1t is more
CHEEKY than most.
Whv any one, even the Nature lover,
should study thrush music, in partlcu-
lar, is not a difficult question to an
swer.
The thrush. in any of its varieties,
of which several are to be touno IN
this locality, is, to many investigators,
the sweetest of the common singers.
1t is one of the few birds whose song
has a definite pattern showing musical
inventiveneSS.
Most of our better known songsters
have pleasing musical outpourlngs, pus
mostly they are just outwelllngs OF
sound as it were. which, though they
are ALWAYS more or less the same, never
seem TO merit the designation OF mu-
sical pattern.
Inventiveness, in the musical sense
seems lacking. A boy with whistle
could do about as good. But with ine
thrushes the listener has something
more It's song is divided into per
feet four-part arrangement, suggesting
the old-fashioned rounds once SO
popular.
AS standardized as this song pattern
is, however, it gives the perlornie,I,s &c ie
markable latitude, as any one VIII us
cover who takes the lrouoie W 'i''''
with real interest. 80
Tbare is listening and listening, OF
course That which is done of-hano'
without anv particular attention oeing
Maid listening which is done uncon,
sciouslv is one sort This is the klno
of listening done when one says: OH'
the thrush has a pretty song.
The other type of listening is con-
sc;ons with the mind of the listener
used to separate the component mu.
sical units of the song, In oroer tilaI
II NAV be differentiated from otner
songs of the same variety.
Until one has tried deliberately along
+bis line he will scarce believe thai
thrnshes are as individual in their songs
a.. we here claim. Yet little 1nVestl-
ao+ion we know. will reveal the vast
difference between song and song, oe-
tween the individual stars.
Petween each of the four parts OF
the thrush song the bird interJects
series of ouavers and semi-quavers
sIight trills and "flourisheS" OF the pest
sort. .; whether
IT must remain a question Wnetnet
these are musical, in the best sense II
the listener chooses to reject them' ne
NAV do so by paying no attentlon 10
them, since the bird has 10 oe very
close. in most cases, for them 10 DC
heard by any but the closest listeners
Our new thrush, on the other bougn'
sings SO loudly all the time, both IN MS
major and minor phrases, that one