BIRD MUSIC IN THE FLATHEAD REGION. 275 



Bird Music in the Flathead Region. 



Perley Milton Silloway. 



Bird music is the blossom or flower of bird life. The plant is with 

 us throughout the summer and perhaps throughout the year, but its fra- 

 grant flower attracts our attention during only a limited period of its 

 summer life. So it is with the bird song; it reveals a life that may have 

 been neglected until that time, and for a brief period we wait and listen 

 for the bird. A little later the song dies away, and the author is likely 

 to be overlooked during its further existence among us. 



The bird song is an index of a changing phase of the bird's activities. 

 Its hundrum habits of the workday world are to be laid aside for a time, 

 and it is to enter upon a brighter and more joyous period of its yearly 

 round. New impulses actuate its little breast, and its kindling spirit 

 leaps forth in song. For weeks and months it has been silent, except in 

 such calls and cries as have been impelled by its usual emotions, but as it 

 sees its little world enlarging to renewed companionship and more en- 

 joyable relationships, it gives unusual utterance to impulses newly 

 aroused, and the song becomes a part of its daily experience. 



As is well-known, the gift of song is generally confined to the male 

 bird. Though the rule is not invariable, the exceptions are few enough 

 to prove the rule. The fact that the male bird alone produces the real 

 song has led to the conclusion that the song is a means by which the 

 male announces his presence to his lady-love, and by which he seeks to 

 attract her attention to his graces and accomplishments. Bird music is 

 the forerunner and accompaniment of the mating season, and continues 

 through what may correspond to the "honeymoon" of more rational be- 

 ings. The song is prompted by the sexual instinct, and in the mating 

 season is doubtless designed to please some listening female. Once her 

 attention is attracted and her ear captivated, the song becomes one of the 

 ways in which she is wooed and won. After she has been won, the song 

 becomes an index of the domestic bliss of the songster. With many 

 birds, the season of song ends quite abruptly with the beginning of the 

 female's household duties; with a few, the period of song is prolonged 

 even until the younglings have left the nest and are able to forage for 

 themselves. In some instances, there is what appears to be a fall period 

 of song, though the fall singing of any bird seldom equals its vernal per- 

 formances in power and volume. 



Some of the birds come to us on their way northward in the spring, 

 caroling in the renewal of their domestic felicity. During the weeks of 

 winter we have missed the presence of the songsters, but on some 

 auspicious morning we hear the old familiar carol, and we note that one 

 of our avian friends of last summer has returned to us. So our bluebird 

 comes to us, and sitting in the top of a convenient tree or on the ridge 

 O'f some low building, it warbles its tender message of the returning 

 spring. For several weeks after the advent of the bluebird, the low- 



