394 The Ohio Naturalist [Vol. Ill, No. 5, 



ON THE AUTUMNAL SONGSEASON.* 



J. R. Taylor. 



What I have to .sa}- is so patently unscientific that my first 

 word must be a disclaimer of any such intention. Subjective 

 method like mine is, I know, amthema in science. From an 

 objective standpoint there is no music in the Brown Creeper's 

 note ; it is a creaking, a filing, an old chair is as musical ; yet I 

 have followed it as Ferdinand followed Ariel. It is courage come 

 to share our winter, a conclusion not necessarily unscientific. 

 Imagination, witness the di.scovery of Neptune or the setting up 

 of the mastodon from fragments of bones, is as great a force in 

 science as in the arts ; and there is no great gulf fixed between 

 science and art, the mind working not differently in the two fields. 

 We of the opposite camp follow beauty, you truth ; the Cardinal 

 in the snow means as much by one method as by the other. 

 Therefore if we learn gladl}^ of the scientists, the reverse is true 

 also ; and because I have learned birds chiefly b}^ their songs, I 

 •find I have to ornithologists, and however small it may be, inter- 

 esting and supplementary information. 



Even scientists know that there is a definite songseason, in a 

 way synchronous with the breeding season, from March to June. 

 It is also well known that birds sing beyond this period, the only 

 absolute lulls seeming to fall in August and in December. I have 

 heard the Bluebirds singing in the snow at Christmas, the Robin 

 on New Year's Day ; and the Carolina Wren, in the words of Mr. 

 Riley, sings when he durn pleases. But the spring songseason 

 remains fixed and unapproachable for its continuit}' and multi- 

 tude of song. What has been more neglected is the autumnal 

 songseason , which seems to me also a definite period , more or less 

 immediately preceding the departure of the birds for the south. 

 At the end of August, this summer, the Orioles and the Warbling 

 Vireos, after many weeks of silence, were all singing again on the 

 campus, and soon after, of course, were gone. This, I think, is 

 a habit which may be found to be universal. I cannot be sure of 

 certain birds. The Whippoorwills sing on into September appar- 

 ently without a break. In the Adirondacks a few years ago the 

 Barred and the Great Horned Owls were silent in July and 

 August, and hallooed over the lakes all night long in September; 

 but in their ca.se this could liardl}^ precede a migration. I have 

 heard the Bobolinks sing for a few moments in the dawn, at the 

 end of August, after they must hav-e changed plumage, and after 

 more than a month of silence; I have heard the Red-winged 

 Blackbirds in October in a chorus unheard since early Jul}' ; and 

 the list might be made a long one, in each case preceded by a 



*Read before the Wheatoti Club of the Ohio State University, October i<), 1901. 



