132 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



it takes little to disturb a house wren, the bird bursts forth with a 

 sharp, tense chatter of the Baltimore oriole, or with a long series of 

 nervous fidgety chip-notes." 



In correspondence from Aretas A. Saunders, he presents an excellent 

 analysis of 55 records he made during his extensive study of the songs 

 of the house wren. His remarks follow : "While the song of the house 

 wren is very variable, it most frequently consists of a series of very 

 rapid notes, the pitch rising at the beginning, falling toward the end, 

 with a sudden increase in loudness on the highest notes in the middle 

 of the song. There are commonly groups of three to eight repeated 

 notes on the same pitch. Some of the songs contain trills, but the 

 majority do not. Twelve of my 55 records contain one or more trills, 

 that is, places where the notes are so rapid that the single notes cannot 

 be counted. With these 12 records omitted, and six others that are 

 unusual and all from the same bird, the remaining 37 records average 

 16 notes per song, the least being 11, in five records, and the most 23 in 

 only one. 



"The pitch of my records ranges from D ' ' ' to B ' ' ' and a great 

 majority have the highest and loudest notes on A ' ' '. The average 

 song ranges from about two and a half tones from the lowest to the 

 highest note. The greatest range of any one song is four tones, and 

 the least one and a half. One unusual song is not considered, since it 

 is all one pitch and therefore has no range. The songs of my records 

 range from 1% to 2% seconds in length. The rapid notes seem to 

 be about eight per second in most cases." 



Hervey Brackbill (MS.), of Baltimore, Md., has observed the 

 house wren sing during the course of its flight. He states : "During 

 May I saw a house wren burst into song on the last 2 or 3 yards of a 

 50-yard flight from tree to tree, completing the song without inter- 

 ruption after alighting. Again, one or two that were keeping close 

 company several times continued songs while flitting from branch to 

 branch, and once this bird began a song about a foot from the finish 

 of a 5-yard flight." 



At the height of the singing season the song is repeated with an 

 amazing frequency. In one timing of the song of a male of a pair 

 that nested in a box on an Illinois farm, the full song was repeated 

 three to four times every minute and at one time totaled five times 

 during the course of one minute. 



The house wren begins its singing at an early date even before 

 its departure from its winter to its summer haunts. Kopman (1915) 

 writes that it sings freely for 3 weeks or more in its winter retreats 

 of Louisiana before leaving on its northern migration. 



Early in the spring one may find a house wren singing a song that 

 is an irregular indefinite jumble of notes, only slightly or not at all 

 suggestive of the usual song of the species, which has been referred to 



