300 BULLETIN 2 03, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MTJSEUM 



family of Black-capped Chickadees travelling slowly through the 

 spruce was totally disregarded." 



The black-throated green warbler is seldom bothered by the cow- 

 bird, although mentioned by several writers as imi^osed upon. 



Voice. — ^Aretas A. Saunders has sent me the following full account 

 of the two songs of the black-throated green warbler : "The quality of 

 the songs is sweet and musical and exceedingly pleasing. With the 

 possible exception of the yellow warbler, this species has the most 

 attractive of the Dendroica songs. The quality has something inde- 

 scribable that is all its own and enables those familiar with it to recog- 

 nize the song, however variable the form. 



"The black-throated green warbler has two distinct forms of song. 

 Both may be sung by the same individual, and both are equally com- 

 mon in the migration and through the nesting season, so that they 

 cannot be considered as territorj'^ and nesting songs. I distinguish 

 them as first and second, but my choice is purely arbitrary. Both are 

 delivered in the same quality. The first is a little longer than the 

 second, for it contains more notes ; but it is not proportionately longer, 

 for the notes are shorter. 



"The first song has notes on three different pitches. The first notes, 

 three to nine but commonly four or five, are all on the same pitch, 

 usually the highest; the next note, usually a major third lower, is the 

 lowest; the next, and last, is between them. Such a song might be 

 written sree sree sree sree sree tro tray^ all the notes being of equal 

 length. I have 34 records of this song, 23 of which follow this form. 

 A few are arranged with the last note highest, or lowest, or on the 

 same pitch as the first. The first notes are sometimes varied by alter- 

 nating short and long notes or sometimes are united in a long trill. 



"The second song consists of four or five notes only, with a definite 

 time arrangement — 3 211 or 32111; that is, the first note is 

 three times as long as the last and the second note twice as long. The 

 third and fourth notes are on the same pitch, but the others are on 

 different pitches, so that the song might be written treee tray to to^ or 

 a 5-note song treee tray tray to-to tay. The notes, as in the first song, 

 are on three different pitches, but they vary in every possible way 

 as to which note is highest and which lowest, so that there are six 

 possible arrangements of these different pitches in a 4-note song where 

 the last two notes are always on the same pitch. In my collection 

 of 52 records of this song I have samples of all six, and of these 33 

 are of four notes, while only 19 have the fifth note added. 



"Songs of this species vary from ll^ to 2 seconds in length, the 

 first song from 1% to 2 seconds, and the second ll^ to \^^ seconds. 

 The pitch varies from Y'" to E"", a half tone less than an octave. 

 One peculiar song of the first type, however, was prefixed by a wren- 



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