10 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



stretched leg clutched at the air and her tail spread slowly into a 

 pointed fan. * * * Deceived for a moment then, I turned a step 

 in her direction. She lay quite still except for a quivering wing. 

 I reached out toward her with a small stick and touched her side; 

 she screamed pitifully ; I stretched out my hand to pick her up, but 

 with a last effort she righted herself, and by kicking desperately with 

 one leg, succeeded in pushing forward a few inches." 



We associate this warbler with dry, rocky hillsides where the ground 

 is strewn with dead leaves, but the bird may breed also in the dry 

 portions of shady, wooded swamps. 



Voice. — The black-and-white is one of the high- voiced singers. Its 

 song is made up of a series of squeaky couplets given with a back-and- 

 forth rhythm, a seesawing effect, like the ovenbird's song played on a 

 fine, delicate instrument. It may be suggested by pronouncing the 

 syllables we see rapidly four or five times in a whispered voice. In the 

 distance the song has a sibilant quality; when heard near at hand a 

 high, clear whistle may be detected in the notes. The final note in the 

 song is the accented see. 



Albert R. Brand (1938), in his mechanically recorded songs of 

 warblers, placed the black-and-white's song as the fourth highest in 

 pitch in his last of 16 species, the blackpoll, blue-winged, and the 

 Blackburnian being higher. He gives the approximate mean (vibra- 

 tions per second of the black and white as 6,900 and of the blackpool 

 as 8,900. 



Aretas A. Saunders (MS.) says : "The pitch of the songs varies, ac- 

 cording to my records, from B"' to E"", a range of three and a half 

 tones more than an octave. A single song, however, does not vary 

 more than three and a half tones." 



A second song, not heard, I think, until the bird has been on its 

 breeding ground for some time, is rather more pleasing, less monoto- 

 nous, than the first. It is longer, somewhat faster, more lively, and is 

 modulated in pitch. Francis H. Allen (MS.) speaks of it thus: 

 "Later in the season a more elaborate song is very commonly heard. I 

 have been accustomed to syllabify it as weesij, weesy, weesy, weesy, 

 woosy, woosy, weesy, weesy. The notes indicated by woosy really 

 differ from the others only by being pitched lower." 



Occasionally we hear aberrant songs which prove puzzling until we 

 can see the singer. Allen remarks that he has heard several such 

 songs, and I remember hearing one in which the lower note of each 

 couplet was reduplicated, thereby strongly suggested one of the songs 

 of the Blackburnian warbler. Sometimes Mniotilta sings during 

 flight. I once heard a song from a bird flying witliin a few feet of 

 me — at this range a sound of piercing sharpness. 



