WHITE-THROATED SPARROW 1379 



long steady note followed by a triplet, another steady note usually 

 upslurred at the beginning, and a few more triplets; the second and 

 third notes are on about the same pitch and distinctly higher than the 

 first note; the remaining notes are on the same pitch or slightly lower 

 than the third note. The usual form of this song could be para- 

 phrased "Poor Peabody, Sam, Peabody, Peabody, Peabody," using 

 the familiar phrases. Songs of this type were abundant throughout 

 the range of the species. A similar song in which the upslur of the 

 third note in the foregoing pattern is replaced by a very short but 

 separate note, accounted for 7 percent of the sample. It was found 

 mainly east of Ontario, where it accounted for between a quarter and 

 a third of the songs. Another common pattern, making up 10 

 percent of the sample, also resembles the first one except that the 

 third and remaining notes are pitched distinctly lower than the 

 second note but higher than the first note. Like the first pattern, 

 it was widely distributed. The fourth common pattern is rather 

 different from the others, beginning with two steady notes at about 

 the same pitch, then dropping to a third steady note considerably 

 lower in pitch, followed by a series of triplets at about the same 

 or a slightly lower pitch than the third. This song accounted for 

 19 percent of the sample and was uncommon east of Ontario. 



Most of the 1 1 rarer patterns are somewhat similar to those already 

 described. Seven birds in Riding Mountain National Park, Mani- 

 toba, began their songs with a series of 7 to 10 short discrete notes 

 followed by longer notes like those in the other songs. L. L. Snyder 

 (1928b) reported a pattern of this sort as common in the Lake Nipigon 

 region of Ontario in the summers of 1923 and 1924. W. W. Gunn 

 did not find it in Ontario west of Lake Superior in 1956 and 1960. 

 There is some indication that this pattern may be disappearing as 

 Gunn found it to be much rarer in Riding Mountain Park in 1960 

 than in 1956. 



It appears that the relative abundance of the different song types in 

 an area may change over a period of years. This might account for the 

 scarcity of the pattern referred to as the common one in many of the 

 older books — the song that begins with two steady notes followed by 

 a series of triplets. Borror and Gunn found only three songs like 

 this, whereas about a quarter of those A. A. Saunders noted (Borror 

 and Gunn) in the Adirondacks in 1925 and 1926 were of this type. 

 W. W. Gunn however did not find it in the Adirondacks in 1960. 

 In view of the many careful observers such as Saunders who have 

 described this pattern and the extensive recent samples of Borror 

 and Gunn, it seems reasonable to conclude that what was once a 

 common song, at least in the Northeast, has almost disappeared. 



The principal form of geographic variation in white-throat songs 



