INDIGO BUNTING 95 



the indigo bird nearly every note is accented, giving it a definite 

 character, and the per-chic-o-ree phrase, so common in the goldfinch's 

 voice, is not introduced. A bright, far-carrying song, suggesting 

 happiness, even exuberance." 



J. H. Langille (1884) calls the song "A sort of hurried warble, 

 quite fluent, and yet seeming to stick in the throat a little. * * * Its 

 tones are musical, being loud at first, but growing faint at the last, 

 as if the singer were exhausting his lungs * * *." This latter point 

 is well taken. 



Ralph Hoffmann (1923) considered the song as resembling the 

 syllables, "swee-swee-swee, swee-swee (slightly lower), sweet-sweet- 

 sweet, swee-swee (slightly lower), swee, swee, swee." Arthur A. Allen 

 (1933) affords another interpretation, "Sweet, sweet-where, where-here, 

 here — see it, see it" 



Nuttall (1832) describes a shorter song "usually uttered at the 

 time that the female is engaged in the cares of incubation, or as the 

 brood already appear, and when too great a display of music might 

 endanger the retiring security of his famUy. From a young or im- 

 perfectly moulted male, on the summit of a weeping willow, I heard 

 the following singularly lively syllables, tie tie tie ta lee, repeated at 

 short intervals." 



Aretas A. Saunders (MS.) writes as follows: "The song of the in- 

 digo bunting consists of a short series of high-pitched notes delivered 

 with a sibilant, wiry, and somewhat strident quality. The notes are 

 grouped together, both by rhythm and pitch, in pairs, with occasional 

 single notes taking the place of a pair, or more rarely three or four 

 shorter notes occupying the same amount of time as a pair, or a 

 single note. Each pair or group of notes is the same pitch through- 

 out, but nearly always a different pitch from that of the pairs immedi- 

 ately succeeding or preceding it. An occasional slurred note, or 

 group of two slurs occurs." 



Saunders emphasizes the high-pitched rather brassy quality, with 

 harsh 2-like consonant sounds. The chief character, with which we 

 agree, is the rhythm. Notes vary from 6 to 21, averaging about 11. 

 Songs vary in length from 1}^ to 6% seconds, averaging about 2%. 

 Pitch ranges between Fa and D*?. The pitch interval varies from 

 1/^ to 5 tones, but over half his 49 records are just 2K tones. In a 

 letter to Mr. Bent he says, "One remarkable song that can give an 

 idea of the rhythm, was zay-zay zreet zay-zay zeah zay-zay seeteeteet 

 zit-zit zeah. The remarkable thing about this is that the rhythm is 

 exactly that of a well-known human jingle, 'Bean porridge hot, bean 

 porridge cold. Bean porridge in the pot, nine days old.' Occasional 

 songs have one or two notes standing out as louder than the rest of 



