EASTERN OVENBIRD 469 



H. E. Tuttle (1919) in writing of the night performance of the 

 flight song of the ovenbird states : 



His songs of the noon hour are but jingling alliterations besides the flood of 

 ecstasy that he pours forth above the tree tops in the dark of night. * • * 

 When the starlit nights are warm with the promise of June, then may you hear 

 the first glad upward rush of that far-flung torrent of poetry. Mounting with 

 hurried gladness, as if he feared some surcease of delight, he gains the open 

 sky, spilling the gay notes earthward in his wake, like the tumbling drops of a 

 mountain waterfall. While the last burst of warbled rapture haunts the still air 

 of night, he has sheered into a swift descent, with perhaps a murmured snatch 

 of the refrain, uttered regretfully, as if Lethe had overtaken the singer and 

 hushed the gay chords whilst they trembled from his heart. * * * 



Sometimes, even when the sun is high, he falls into a reverie, perched on a 

 horizontal bough above the glade, then, rarely, and but for a moment, as if in a 

 day-dream, the lyric gift is restored. He darts from his perch like a mad thing, 

 and whips through the woods with incredible speed, singing wildly his flight song 

 witli all the abandon of a Bacchante, till, as suddenly, he comes to rest upon the 

 branch from which he started, dozes a space, and wakes to walk quietly the 

 length of his perch, returning to the earth as if quite unconscious of what has 

 occurred. 



In addition to these songs the ovenbird has an alarm note which is 

 a loud "te^(?^" and on certain occasions utters a softer higher pitched 

 '"Hseety Miss Cordelia J. Stanwood describes the calls uttered by the 

 ovenbird when disturbed at the nest as "cAeA.' chip! sptz! sptz! sptz! 

 sptzV and that of a bird suddenly surprised as ^^chip-ip-ip-ip^ 



Enemies. — The ovenbird, as in the case of other ground nesting birds 

 of the forest, suffers from the depredations of snakes, squirrels, skunks, 

 weasels, and other prowlers. William Brewster (1936) gives us a 

 very graphic account of ovenbirds and a black snake which he ob- 

 served on June 21, 1886, as follows : 



A low but unusual chirping attracted my attention. The sound steadily be- 

 came more distinct and its authors — for there were evidently several — were 

 plainly advancing toward me. I soon made out they were Oven Birds and that 

 they were on or near the ground, which although free from underbrush was 

 nevertheless well shaded by an abundant growth of sarsaparilla. 



Finally the dry leaves began to rustle and the sarsaparilla stems to wave 

 directly in front of my position and the next moment a black snake about three 

 feet long emerged into an opening, gliding swiftly and in a perfectly direct 

 course. On each side of the slightly raised head and within less than two feet 

 of it, walked a pair of Oven Birds, their bills open and panting, their wings 

 slightly raised and quivering so rapidly as to produce a hazy appearance above 

 their bodies. They kept their distance exactly and, when the snake stopped 

 they stopped also, apparently not looking at him but facing directly ahead. 

 They were also seemingly ignored by the snake, although he doubtless kept a 

 not less keen side watch on them than they did on Iiim. The entire group, which 

 finally halted within less than ten yards of me, presented a remarkable, not to 

 say ludicrous spectacle and at once suggested the idea that birds were in trained 

 attendance on the snake — a well-drilled escort, as it were, to guide or guard him 

 during his morning crawl. I ended what was likely enough to prove a tragedy to 

 the birds by shooting the snake. 

 981873—53 81 



