Abstract
ON October 6 a private hearing was given by Messrs. H. F. and G. Witherby of some wonderfully successful gramophone records of British birds singing in their natural haunts. These are to be issued next week with a book on “Songs of Wild Birds” by Mr. E. M. Nicholson, said to be the first work to be published in Great Britain with auditory as well as visual illustrations. The records themselves were made by Mr. Ludwig Koch, with the assistance of Mr. C. Horton-Smith and the technical co-operation of the Parlophone Company. The material given on two double-sided disks, running for twelve minutes in all, has been selected from a large number of recordings. The practical difficulties to be overcome were obviously great, but the results obtained are well worth much labour. The songs of such musicians as the nightingale and blackbird are beautifully reproduced; the characteristic strains of lesser songsters like the chaffinch and willow-wren are faithfully recorded; and the calls of cuckoo and dove even the non-vocal drumming of the spotted woodpecker lend pleasing variety. The quality is incomparably superior to that of previous records obtained from captive birds of a few species. These records will certainly give much pleasure and useful instruction: they may also provide valuable opportunities for analytical study of bird music. No doubt more will be made, for different kinds of birds, now that the example has been set. It is clear, too, that there are other subjects to which this interesting innovation of the ‘sound book’ may in future be applied.
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Records of Bird-Song. Nature 138, 610–611 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138610c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138610c0