t, I am willing to confess that I have once or twice been so
badly deceived that now the mere sight of this _Pipilo_ is, so to speak,
a means of grace to me.

One more of these innovators (these heretics, as they are most likely
called by their more conservative brethren) is the field sparrow,
better known as _Spizella pusilla_. His usual song consists of a simple
line of notes, beginning leisurely, but growing shorter and more rapid
to the close. The voice is so smooth and sweet, and the acceleration so
well managed, that, although the whole is commonly a strict monotone,
the effect is not in the least monotonous. This song I once heard
rendered in reverse order, with a result so strange that I did not
suspect the identity of the author till I had crept up within sight of
him. Another of these sparrows, who has passed the last two seasons in
my neighborhood, habitually doubles the measure; going through it in the
usual way, and then, just as you expect him to conclude, catching it up
again, _Da capo_.

But birds like these are quite outdone by such species as the song
sparrow, the white-eyed vireo, and the Western meadow-lark,--species of
which we may say that each individual bird has a whole repertory of
songs at his command. The song sparrow, who is the best known of the
three, will repeat one melody perhaps a dozen times, then change it for
a second, and in turn leave that for a third; as if he were singing
hymns of twelve or fifteen stanzas each, and set each hymn to its
appropriate tune. It is something well worth listening to, common
though it is, and may easily suggest a number of questions about the
origin and meaning of bird music.

The white-eyed vireo is a singer of astonishing spirit, and his sudden
changes from one theme to another are sometimes almost startling. He is
a skillful ventriloquist, also, and I remember one in particular who
outwitted me completely. He was rehearsing a well-known strain, but at
the end there came up from the bushes underneath a querulous call. At
first I took it for granted that some other bird was in the underbrush;
but the note was repeated too many times, and came in too exactly on the
beat.

I have no personal acquaintance with the Western meadow-lark, but no
less than twenty-six of his songs have been printed in musical notation,
and these are said to be by no means all.[4]

Others of our birds have similar gifts, though no others, so far as I
know, are quite so vers