Charles Crawford Gorst: the bird man

              Figure
Charles Crawford Gorst 
The Bird Man





Eminent Naturalist — Bird Imitator
CHARLES CRAWFORD GORST

IS RECOGNIZED as one of the great naturalists of the country.  He has given years of his life to the intensive study of birdlore, and if he has given any one branch of this interesting nature work more attention than others, it is the study of the bird songs, and the mastery of bird song imitations.  He has perfected the reproduction of more than 600 songs of more than 200 birds, and this interesting and novel part of his program has won for him the title of 
The Bird-Man.




Mr. Gorst is a well known member of the American Ornithologists' Union, the National Association of Audubon Societies and other leading organizations of naturalists.  His accomplishments and his lectures bear the unstinted endorsement of such men as the late John Burroughs, T. Gilbert Pearson, secretary of the National Audubon Society, Frank M. Chapman, noted Ornithologist, Winthrop Packard of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, William Finley, western bird photographer and many others.




His lectures combine the charm of the nature student with the correctly rendered songs of birds.  They are intensely interesting and highly educational.  He is heart and soul in the big work of nature-study and his sole purpose in lecturing is to awaken an interest in bird-life.  His work with the Affiliated Bureaus the past several seasons has been nothing short of sensational.




METHOD OF BIRD - SONG PRODUCTION



When one hears Mr. Gorst's marvelous reproduction of bird-songs, the first question is usually:  
How does he do it?
  Mr. Gorst frankly admits he never learned any particular method.  He has tried to impart his gift to others—and has failed to teach it.  Strangely, it is 
NEITHER SINGING NOR WHISTLING,
 but a bird-like note produced in the mouth, and broken into twenty tone-variations by diaphragm, larynx, soft-palate, tongue, teeth and lips.  When a boy of eight among the sunny hill tops of Nebraska, he first attempted to imitate the song of the lark-bunting.  The imitation failed but the song was recorded in memory, and at the age of eleven, he conceived the idea of producing bird notes by a certain relation of tongue and teeth, and after two months of effort the first tone was made.  Continued effort varied this tone making twenty elementary qualities—and even now Mr. Gorst is working on new ones.  Maintenance of this talent means daily practice which Mr. Gorst has kept up for years.





SIX HUNDRED BIRD SONGS IN 
REPERTOIRE


Figure




Twenty elementary tone-vibrations sounded in rapid sequence or even in combinations of three or four at once make possible bird-song imitations that have been considered impossible.  He now imitates 600 songs of about 200 species of birds, widely varying, from the squawks, screams and shrill pipings and voicy notes of the water birds to the trills, warblings and smooth serene notes of the highly organized songs of the finest songbirds.  Songs of insects, frogs, toads, etc., are also accurately produced.  Sometimes the bird song reproductions necessitate the trilling of three distinct notes at once, sometimes a falsetto scream actually made by the larynx as high as the piano's highest 
C,
—and for the humming bird a note a full octave higher than the piano.





CHARLES CRAWFORD GORST 
THE BIRD-MAN



Figure

A Recognized Authority on Birds and Bird-Lore The Most Versatile Bird Imitator in America


Entertaining—Educational—InspiringPROGRAM IS DELIGHTFULLY VARIED


Mr. Gorst's program is so unusual, so varied, and so rare that salesmen often confess difficulty in representing it accurately.  It has a peculiar value from the standpoint of novelty and variety.  There is music, bird-songs, paintings, humor, narrative, action, vivid description, poetry, philosophy.  It is of distinctive educational worth, scientifically and aesthetically, for its information and refining influence—yet never for a minute does it lose the interest of any element of the audience.  It is inspirational, for it turns the hearts of young and old toward higher things, and leads them to seek and find for themselves, unnumbered facts and immeasurable joy and refinement.  
I never heard birds sing or cared to watch them until after your lecture!
  Such is the most common expression that follows Mr. Gorst everywhere.  In this tribute Mr. Gorst finds his greatest joy and inspiration, for it marks a change of heart among his hearers—from wearisome commercialism of today, to the poetry and spirituality of childhood, and from the noisy artificialities of society and the city to the genuine satisfaction of quiet, country life.




SONGS FOOL BIRDS IN ACTUAL TEST



Mr. Gorst stands ready to prove, by demonstration, that his songs are accurate enough to incite the bird imitated, into song; or to bring him within a yard of where Mr. Gorst is; or to bring two males together in combat; or to interest male and female in each other; or to bring a female to her nest; or to open the mouths of the young in the nest; or to suddenly quiet a restless little nestling.  This test, in itself, is the greatest tribute that could be paid the noted naturalist.  His ability to imitate accurately enables him, by observation and participation in bird conversation, to study the language and beauty of bird-notes, and to tell other people, by description and imitation, what he has found of thrilling interest in bird-life and bird-song.





PAINTINGS ADD MUCH TO LECTURE



An unusual method of illustration is employed.  He uses a set of artistic paintings of birds, done by himself, after study under a noted Boston artist.  These are displayed on a large easel, in full coloring, and brilliantly lighted by a flood light.  Thus audiences may see with interest the various birds described and may more clearly appreciate the dramatic descriptions and appeals.





FIFTEEN YEARS SUCCESSFUL APPEARANCE



Mr. Gorst is considered by leading naturalists and scientific men to be the most natural and versatile imitator of bird songs in America and probably the world.  Fifteen years of successful appearances covering all of the United States and most of the Canadian provinces, a very wide circulation of his Victor and Edison phonograph records, important appearances before noted scientific and naturalists' gatherings, a wide interest of the press in his work — all these things have contributed in placing him where he is today as a lecturer, a naturalist, a bird imitator, and educator.  His lectures are novel, interesting and extremely worthwhile.


Figure






Interesting and Enthusiastic Comment Concerning Mr. Gorst's Lectures 
America's Leading Naturalists and Noted Men Praise Gorst Press of Country Unanimous in Praising Noted Naturalist



JOHN BURROUGHS,
 Naturalist, Author.




Your call upon me the other day made a distinct impression.  The bird songs which you imitated, or reproduced, were admirably done.  Your rendering of the songs of the robin, the bobolink, the cuckoo, the meadow lark, the pewee, the indigo bunting, the cardinal, the mocking bird, and several others was the best I ever heard.




T. GILBERT PEARSON,
 Secretary National Ass'n of Audubon Societies.




I regard Charles C. Gorst as perhaps the best imitator of songs and notes of wild birds that this country has yet produced.




DR. G. CLYDE FISHER,
 Assistant Curator American Museum of Natural History, New York City.




His work along this line is approved and admired by naturalists and ornithologists by whom he is pretty generally regarded as the best imitator of the songs and notes of the wild birds in America.  He succeeded in throwing over his enthusiastic audience the spell of the fields and woods in what was doubtless the best lecture of five lectures which he has given at the American Museum of Natural History.




FRANK M. CHAPMAN,
 Curator of Ornithology in the American Museum of Natural History, New York City; Editor of Bird-lore.




Mr. Gorst has an exceptional talent for the imitation of birds' notes, combined with a keen ear and an evident knowledge of birds in the field, which makes his reproduction of birds' songs the most satisfactory of any I have ever heard.




WINTHROP PACKARD,
 Secretary-Treasurer of Massachusetts Audubon Society.




I have heard most enthusiastic praise for your entertainment from all sides.  It is the finest piece of work, not only as a lecture on birds, but because of its inimitable reproduction of bird notes, that I have ever heard.



Figure




CONCORD MORNING PATRIOT
 (New Hampshire)—


The music and bird lover enjoyed the evening to its fullest extent, while the novice found himself highly interested in a study that he had never before given more than passing attention.




TERRE HAUTE STAR
 (Ind.)—


His skill as demonstrated was the mostly highly trained of any performer who has been seen on local platforms in recent years.




THE IDAHO STATESMAN
 (Boise)—


All marveled at the skill and the patience necessary to perfect such an entertainment.  He illustrated his bird imitations with colored pictures of the birds, enabling the listener to connect the bird and the song promptly.




THE BUTTE MINER
 (Mont.)—


There were notes, trills, runs, too incredibly high to be made by the human voice, it seemed to the breathless audience.




OHIO STATE JOURNAL
 (Columbus)—


Mr. Gorst's lecture was an entertainment with a rare and delicate flavor.  It was like the sound of wind in the leaves, the touch of cool grass, or the odor of honeysuckles—in fact of all the sweet and simple sensations associated with the songs of birds.  His first imitation was the song of the robin.  A part of the audience shut its eyes and imagined itself up before breakfast mowing the lawn.




THE EVENING STANDARD
 (New Rochelle, N. Y.)—


It seemed impossible that such sounds could be produced by the human voice without artificial aid.  He has lifted whistling to a fine art and has proven that bird songs are true music.




THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
 (Santa Rosa, Cal.)—


At the afternoon session old and young were more than delighted with the wonderful work of 
The Bird Man,
 and when the birds in the trees surrounding the tent took to answering his imitations people realized as never before what a wonderful work he was doing.




VICTOR RECORDS:  
Six Records; Two Solos, Four Bird Imitations
 EDISON RECORDS:  
Two Records; One Solo, One Bird Imitation

A Specimen ProgramMUSICAL INTRODUCTION




Whistling Solo:  En Sourdine


Tellam




Whistling Novelties





Whistling Solo:  
Robin's Return


Fisher






THE MUSICAL GENIUS OF BIRDS
 (About an hour)



Imitation of about sixty common bird-songs, with full color, 40x50 in., pastel paintings of the birds, enlarged and electric lighted, and with narration of humorous and surprising experiences with birds.




The above is accompanied by a popular presentation of the following topics:




Uncommon Notes of Common Birds.


Bird Songs as Designs in Sound.


Bird Songs as Tunes.


The Language of Birds.


Birds and the Farmer.


How to Write Bird Songs.


The Harmony of Songs and Scenes.





Schumann-Heink is Beaten by Octaves
 Boston Evening Transcript.



Mr. Charles Crawford Gorst has Schumann-Heink beaten by exactly three octaves.  So high is the tiny voice of the bee-like bird that many even of the bird lovers are not aware that he sings at all.  Yet he does, and Mr. Gorst in his charming imitations of wood notes, is able to emulate the humming bird.




It is a popular illusion that the imitation of bird voices is a stage trick for the comedian.  But Mr. Gorst has raised this form of art to a higher plane.  His place is not the stage, but the lecture hall, and his purpose is to inspire his audience with the true aesthetic value of bird life and wood notes—to demonstrate the beauties of the bird's habit, plumage, and songs.




Mr. Gorst produces, in all, about twenty elementary bird-tone qualities.  Every song is made up of variations and combinations of these sounds, produced at longer or shorter intervals, and in higher or lower keys.  In his boyhood Mr. Gorst began attempting to imitate the bird notes, the first of which came only after two months of continual rehearsal.  Today he has mastered about six hundred songs, and can imitate nearly two hundred different birds.  When we consider that the register of the birds extends as low as middle C, and for more than, five octaves above, we can understand one of the difficulties involved in this art.  Yet Mr. Gorst has even mastered the highest-pitched bird song—that of the humming bird, who sings on the note of D-flat, five octaves above middle C.





This Man Out-Trills the Humming Bird
 Boston Sunday Post.



Living in Boston there is a man who can sound a musical note a whole octave higher than the humming bird, called the bird with the highest note in all the woods.




The note of the humming bird is supposed to be at least three octaves higher than that which any human voice can sing.




The man who is able to perform this remarkable feat is Charles Crawford Gorst, who might be called the 
human humming bird.




It goes without saying that he does not sing the note which is an octave higher than the humming bird; he 
whistles it,
 and often it is scarcely audible to the human ear.




The note which Mr. Gorst has been able to reach is said to be nearly twice as high above low C as any tone which has ever been sung by a human voice.




Among the great opera singers Tetrazzini has been able to sing as high as any of them, and she has reached only high F, or perhaps F-sharp.




As an imitator of birds and student of bird life Mr. Gorst is perhaps one of the best known men in the country.  After years of study he has mastered 600 songs of the woods and can imitate 200 or more birds.





Misleads Even the Birds



In fact, he is so clever at imitation that even the birds themselves often have been misled into believing one of them was singing, and out in Franklin Park and in the Public Garden bird students on many occasions have mistaken his whistling for that of the real thing.




Management AFFILIATED LYCEUM AND CHAUTAUQUA ASSOCIATION, INC. 2443 Prospect Ave., Cleveland, Ohio





Some Noteworthy Engagements



BOSTON
—Eleven appearances before the Mass.  Ass'n of Audubon Societies during four years.


NEW YORK
— Five during four years at the American Museum of Natural History.


PHILADELPHIA
—University Extension Lecture.


WASHINGTON
 — Smithsonian Institute, Audubon Society, annual meeting.


BUFFALO
 — Academy of Natural Sciences.


TOLEDO
—Three appearances Art Museum and Waite High Schools.


INDIANAPOLIS
—State Teachers' Association, Indiana State University.


DES MOINES
 — State Teachers' Association.


LAKE CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y.
—Two appearances, Minneapolis-Teachers' League.






A. H. Anderson Printing Co., Streator,