DICKCISSEL 181 



Look! see me here! see!" and again he writes, "the simple ditty 

 sounds Hke chip-chip-chee, chee, chee" To the Rev. J. Hibbert 

 Langille (1894) it sounds like "chic-chic-chelac-chick-cJiick-chick" or 

 "chick-ticktshe-chick-chick-chick" E. A. Doolittle (1920) describes 

 the song of a male when it first arrived as "a raspy Schreeee-schree, 

 schree schree. P. M. Silloway (1904) who made a special study of the 

 song in Illinois writes: "His first song was hke this: Dick, dick, ciss 

 ciss sell, and this rendition proved to be his favorite production. 

 Frequently I could hear in it: Quick, quick, sell sell sell, both songs 

 being emphasized at the last syllable." Amos W. Butler (1898) 

 writes: "comes to me characteristically as five metallic sounds — 

 something like the noise made by dropping six silver dollars, one 

 upon the other, into one's hand: clenk, clenk, clenk-clenk-clenk." 

 Robert Ridgway (1889) writes: "[They] perch upon the summits of 

 tall weed-stalks or fence-stakes, at short intervals crying out: 'See, 

 see — Dick, Dick-Cissel, Cissel.'" This latter is a much quoted 

 interpretation of the song and one which has given popularity to the 

 common name. 



One can imagine the dickcissel singing almost any of the varied 

 sets of words given above, yet to the reader who has never heard the 

 song, some of these interpretations might be very misleading. If I 

 were to select from the above descriptions the ones which seem best 

 to depict its character, it would be a combination of those ^\Titten 

 by Nuttall and Ridgway, "See See — Dick! Dick! tshe tshe tshe tship 

 (or chisl)." The See See which serves as a prelude is very faint and 

 heard only at close range. These preliminary notes are often omitted, 

 and I have failed to hear some males utter them at all. The Dick! 

 is loud, strongly accented, and repeated slowly, usually once, some- 

 times twice. It is followed by a rapid succession of three or four 

 notes that sound like tshe or chee. The last note ends abruptly and 

 is slightly different from the others, sounding more like tship or 

 sometimes chisl or merely isl. When the bird is weary, and often in 

 excessively hot weather, the song is simplified to Dick! Dick!-isl 

 and sometimes merely to Dick! Dick! at irregular intervals. 



Aretas A. Saunders wi'ites in the unpublished accounts of the bird 

 songs he studied and analyzed: "The song of the dickcissel is chattery 

 and sibilant, and not of musical quality, though it is definitely 

 rhythmic, and the notes can be definitely pitched. Each song con- 

 sists of two parts, the first usually of two notes of the chattery type 

 and the latter of three that are sibilant. The first two notes are 

 short and staccato and separated by short pauses, and the latter 

 three, though equally short, foUow each other rapidly without pause. 

 If one counts seven, evenly and rather rapidly, and then does it again 

 in the same time, omitting the 2 and 4, so that it goes 1-3-567, he 



