48 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



full sway. I cannot say positively that 

 they drove off the starlnigs, but that 

 was apparently the cause of their leav- 

 ing, i think, of the two, we would 

 much have preferred the starlings for 

 our neighbors in the old elm. 



The Song of the Brov/n Creeper. 



It always brings a thrill to the bird 

 lover to hear a new song or to see a 

 bird which he has never before ob- 

 served. Such a thrill was mine on the 

 iirst of April last, when wandering 

 about the edge of a swamp near my 

 home I heard a clear, sweet little war- 

 ble, and following up its author, found 

 the bird to be a brown creeper. The 

 song, repeated many times at rather 

 long intervals while 1 watched the bird 

 a few yards away, seemed to consist of 

 four parts: the first note rather high, 

 the second lower, the third again high- 

 er, and the last ending in a little de- 

 scending trill. 



After feeling well acquainted with 

 these birds as winter residents for 

 some twenty years, and never having 

 -heard any note from them except their 

 usual mouse-like squeak, uttered while 

 running up the trunks of the trees, I 

 was naturally surprised and elated with 

 my new discovery. Their fine note 

 seems always very elusive and the sha- 

 dow-like movements of the bird itself 

 make it often-times a rather difficult 

 •one to locate and observe. In this in- 

 stance, however, it was soon marked by 

 its song; although the bird did not 

 seem to pause while giving it, but kept 

 on its spiral course up the trunks of 

 the swamp maples, — twisting about one 

 for some fifteen or twenty feet, then 

 dropping down to the base of another 

 nearby to repeat the performance. 



H. D. Minot, in his early work on 

 "The Land Birds and Game Birds of 

 New England" speaks of this song as 

 follows : "Their indescribable song is 

 a very pleasant one, being somewhat 

 like the far finer music of the winter 

 wren, and is varied, some of the notes 

 being loud and sweet, while others are 

 much feebler and less full in tone. It 

 IS repeated in both spring and summer, 

 but never, I think, before March." 



Wm. Brewster, in a biography of the 

 brown creeper, mentions the fact that 

 in its northern summer home among 

 the spruces and firs this bird has an 



exquisitely pure, tender song of four 

 notes, aptly describing it as "the first 

 of moderate pitch, the second lower and 

 less emphatic, the third rising again and 

 the last abruptly falling, but dying 

 away in an indescribably plaintive ca- 

 dence, like the soft sigh of the wind 

 among the pine boughs." 



The Passing of a True Friend of the 

 Birds. 



Bird lovers generally, and especially 

 those interested in the great study of 

 migration, have lost a valued friend and 

 counsellor in the death of Prof. Wells W. 

 Cooke of the U. S. Biological Survey, 

 who died at Washington on March 

 30th. 



Prof. Cooke was acknowledged pre- 

 eminent authority on all matters per- 

 taining to bird migration, and through 

 years of patient study and correspond- 

 ence had built up a most valuable sys- 

 tem of compiling facts concerning the 

 movements of birds throughout the 

 country, for the use of the Department 

 of Agriculture, with which he has been 

 identified for the past fifteen years. The 

 success of this undertaking has been 

 largely due to his devoted personal 

 work. 



Though but fifty-eight years of age 

 at the time of his death. Prof. Cooke has 

 lived long in the service of his fellow- 

 men. In his gathering together of use- 

 ful information he has accomplished in 

 this time what seems little short of 

 marvellous, and the results of his splen- 

 did work cannot help but show increas- 

 ing value in the coming years. 



A Singing Blue Jay. 



While visiting the interesting aviary 

 at the Boston "Zoo" a short time ago, 

 the writer was greatly surprised to hear 

 a new and imitative song from the 

 throat of a common blue jay, which, 

 with three others, was in a large cage 

 inside the enclosure. Surprise was 

 turned to delight when this bird re- 

 peated its performance, not once, but 

 many times, while I stood watching it 

 a few feet away. The song was varied 

 and given after the manner of that of 

 the brown thrasher. It contained nu- 

 merous warbles — one a very good imi- 

 tation of that of a canary. 



About six feet away from the blue 



