EASTERN REDWING 141 



"The conqueree song, to my ear more like ko-klareeee, is by far the 

 commonest form, the first note being lowest in pitch, the second 

 medium, and the trill highest. Of 102 records of red-wing songs, 46 

 have 2 notes followed by a trill, and 19 are as described above. A 

 good many songs of different individuals are apparently just alike, 

 beginning on A", the second note on C", and the trill on E'". On 

 one occasion I listened to 8 birds singing in chorus: 6 of them sang 

 this song, another ended with the trill on D'", and the other began 

 on C" and ended on G"', but all sang the simple 2 notes and a trill. 



"Of my records, 10 have only 1 note before the trill, 29 have 3 notes, 

 9 have 4 notes, 1 has 5, and 1 has 6 ; 6 other records do not end in a 

 trill, but follow the trill by a low-pitched terminal note ko klareeee tup. 

 While it is common for the trill to be the highest pitch of the song, I 

 have 14 records in which the note before the trill is about 1 tone higher 

 than the trill. A peculiar variation, of which I have 9 records, has the 

 trill made up of notes slow enough to be heard separately and counted. 

 In such cases the number of notes in the trill varies from 5 to 7. Such 

 songs usually have but 1 note before the trill, so that such a song 

 sounds like ka-lililililip. 



"Red-wing songs are short, varying from % to 1% seconds. The 

 range of pitch, however, is great, from A' to G'" '. Individual songs 

 are very variable in range of pitch, from half a tone to 8)2 tones. The 

 commonest range, and about the average, is 3/2 tones; 20 of my 

 records have this range; 10 other records range the 6 tones of a full 

 octave, and 10 more range over an octave. Songs with the greater 

 ranges have 4 to 6 notes before the trill. 



"When a male red-wing sings, it commonly spreads the tail, half- 

 spreads the wings, ruffles up the feathers on its back, and lifts the red 

 feathers on its 'shoulders,' so that they flash brilliantly with the 

 coming of the conqueree. At times it sings in flight, and often, when 

 flying from one perch to another, hovers a foot or so above the con- 

 templated perch and sings just before alighting. In the spring migra- 

 tion one may find a flock of male red-wings in the tree-tops, nearly 

 every one singing at short intervals, so that the result is a loud con- 

 tinuous chorus. In May, in the nesting season, in a cat-tail marsh 

 well populated with red-wings, there is a chorus of song just as day- 

 light is beginning. Each male sings his song two or three times a 

 minute, and each female continuously emits a high-pitched, sharp call. 

 I do not remember to have heard this call at any other time. 



"The common call of the red-wing, usually written chack, often 

 sounds to me more like tsack. An alarm note, used when one nears 

 the nest, is a downward slurred peeah, and another, less frequently 

 heard, is a mournful sounding downward slide, like peeiiaoh. 



