142 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



"The season of song begins with the first arrival in spring, which in 

 Connecticut is March or sometimes late February. It terminates in 

 late July or early August. The average of 17 years is Jul} 7 25, the 

 earliest July 16, 1917, in Connecticut, and the latest August 5, 1940, 

 in Cattaraugus County, New York. Ordinarily red-wings do not 

 sing at all in the fall, but once, October 31, 1937, I found a small 

 flock of males, several of them singing." 



Du Bois writes to me: "On April 28 and 29, 1930, I heard a thrush- 

 like song suggestive of the veery coming from somewhere beyond a 

 bouse; and on May 2, I definitely saw a female red-wing singing this 

 song at the edge of the marsh by the road." I can find no other 

 mention of a female song. 



Witmer Stone (1937) gives his impression of the voices of the pair 

 when their breeding ground is invaded as follows: 



As one approaches the nesting site the male launches into the air and begins 

 to call sheep; sheep; sheep; sheep; each call separated from the next by an interval. 

 Then as the excitement increases there is a long drawn zeeet interpolated irregu- 

 larly thus: sheep; sheep; sheep; sheep; zeeet; sheep; sheep; sheep; zeeet; sheep; sheep; 

 zeeet, etc., the bird all the while poised on rapidly beating wings directly over- 

 head, and now and then swooping down still closer. The female, arising from 

 her perch on a cattail, has a similar note but less harsh than the sheep of the male, 

 and she also utters a much more rapid and differently pitched series of notes; 

 chip-chip-chip-chip; chip-chip-chip-chip-chip, etc., then both birds alight on a 

 bayberry bush and call together, the female seeming to relieve the male entirely 

 from the first part of his cry and to her repeated chip-chip-chip-chip, etc., he 

 contributes only the long drawn zeeet at regular intervals so that the combination 

 is almost like his opening effort. 



In recording the vibration frequencies of passerine song, Albert 

 R. Brand (1938) found that the highest note in the song of the eastern 

 redwing had a frequency of 4,375 vibrations per second, the lowest 

 note 1,450, with an approximate mean of 2,925 vibrations per second. 



Enemies. — Probably more redwings have been killed by man 

 than by any other one agency, for when they swoop down in clouds 

 on the corn fields, grain fields, and rice plantations they have been 

 slaughtered in multitudes to protect the crops. Wilson (1832) gives 

 the following graphic account of how they used to be killed in great 

 numbers, while roosting at night in the marshes. In some places — 



when the reeds become dry, advantage is taken of this circumstance, to destroy 

 these birds, by a party secretly spproaching the place, under cover of a dark 

 night, setting fire to the reeds in several places at once, which being soon enveloped 

 in one general flame, the uproar among the Blackbirds becomes universal; and, 

 by the light of the conflagration, they are shot down in vast numbers, while 

 hovering and screaming over the place. Sometimes straw is used for the same 

 purpose, being previously strewed near the reeds and alder bushes, where they 

 are known to roost, which being instantly set on fire, the consternation and havoc 

 is prodigious; and the party return by day to pick up the slaughtered game. 



